On this day in 2005: Dame Kelly Holmes announces retirement

Double Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes announced her retirement from athletics on December 6, 2005.

Holmes had been a regular medallist at middle distance events, including winning bronze over 800 metres at the Sydney Olympics, but injuries had hampered her until the stars aligned in the build-up to the Athens Games in 2004.

Holmes had planned to bow out at the Commonwealth Games in 2006 but brought forward her retirement plans.

The former army sergeant revealed at a press conference she had been badly affected by the death of a man she met while visiting her physiotherapist in Ireland.

She said: “I met a guy in Ireland called Tim O’Brian, a friend of my physio Gerard Hartmann. We met for lunch and he was full of life. I went back to South Africa and heard two days later from Gerard that he only had four weeks to live.

“I have achieved everything I ever wanted. I am a double Olympic champion. I have nothing to prove to anyone, including myself. I have done and surpassed what other people will continue to dream of.”

Holmes hung up her spikes having won 12 major medals across a 10-year span, including Commonwealth golds over 1,500m in 1994 and 2002.

Since retirement, Holmes has mentored young athletes, worked in TV and as a motivational speaker and written several books. She was made a Dame by the Queen in the New Year’s Honours of 2005 and appointed Honorary Colonel of the Royal Armoured Corps Training Regiment in 2018.