Cate Campbell retired two years ago, but pulling on swimmers still triggers her

While retirement is a major life milestone for many, often bringing new opportunities, the transition can also involve significant challenges. For professional sportspeople, these hurdles can be especially difficult, says Kristine Dun, the national performance psychologist lead at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).

“Athletes usually start their sport from a fairly young age, and a lot of who they are is tied up in what they do,” she says. “When they retire, it can be a bit discombobulating. They can question, ‘What am I doing now? I’m not quite sure. I’ve lost a bit of a sense of who I am and where I fit in the world.’”

This can be further complicated when retirement isn’t a choice, but rather the result of injury or deselection.

Programs like AIS Accelerate support athletes as they navigate life beyond competition. These formal support systems – alongside the vital backing of family and friends – are critical for helping an athlete successfully navigate this stage of life, Dun says.

Here, three former professional athletes share their experiences of retiring from sport.

Cate Campbell, 34, swimmer

“I qualified for my first Olympic Games in 2008 when I was just 16. I then went on to three successive Games.

By the time I hung up my cap and goggles for that final time in 2024 at age 32, I had been an Olympian for more than half my life, so it had formed an incredible part of my youth and my adulthood as well.

I’ve always said that to achieve anything, you must be willing to sacrifice, and the older you get, the weightier those things that you must sacrifice are.

When I was 16, the sacrifices I was making included not being able to go to a sleepover, but as you get older, you start to have to give up things like relationships, building a career or, for women, not having a family because sport prevents you from doing that.

I made the commitment to try to qualify for my fifth Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. I had been very vocal that Paris was going to be my last hurrah. I was ready to say goodbye to the sport.

When I missed out on selection, there was a beautiful moment in the pool where all the girls – such as Meg Harris and Shayna Jack – came in and gave me this big, beautiful hug. While it wasn’t the fairytale, as in I didn’t make the Paris Olympic Games, there was almost something more poignant and beautiful about it ending that way, as it was at Chandler, my home pool in Brisbane. It was where I swam my first big race when I was 10, and I was able to go and see my friends and family in the crowd immediately afterwards.

By the time I reached those qualifying competitions, my body was so broken, and I was in constant pain. When I put on a pair of swimmers, I can feel my nervous system fire up. It’s going to take a long time for that to calm down and for me to realise that it’s OK, I’m not going to be pushing myself to those limits again anytime soon.

Since retiring, I have the flexibility to spend time and energy on other people, which has been wonderful. My partner and I have finished renovating a house, we’ve bought a puppy, got engaged, and are planning a wedding – all the things that I could technically do while I was swimming, but just felt like there wasn’t the time and energy to invest in them.

I’d spent 20 years perfecting my craft, and I was one of the best swimmers in the world. But that skill of staring at a black line and spinning my arms fast, moving from one end of the pool to the other, doesn’t translate super well into everyday life. So, I’m trying to give myself grace and permission to be bad at something, to try new things, to learn to slow down, to realise that it’s OK not to be the busiest person I know.”

Lydia Williams, 38, soccer player

“I grew up in a small country town in Western Australia, so weekends were dedicated to sport, and football was one of them.

I was a bit lost when my family moved to Canberra when I was 11. Football helped me settle into who I was and made it easier for me to make friends and feel like I fitted in.

I made my debut for the Matildas at 16. I got to travel to Asia and go on a tour, and it made me realise this is something I wanted to keep doing.

In 2019, I started thinking about retirement. The Matildas were about to undergo a coaching change, and I wasn’t sure what my role would be moving forward as I was already 14 years into my career. I went through a long period of planning, identity shifting and development before I felt I could accept it and move on.

I officially retired from international football after the Paris Olympics, and a year later, from all football. I got to play my final game for the Matildas in a sell-out at Stadium Australia; that might be my favourite memory of being a footballer.

To finally have time for the people and moments that I had to miss during my career was a really nice feeling, knowing that those people have supported me all the way through with understanding and grace. Finally being able to stop being so selfish about achieving my sporting dreams was a relief.

The biggest challenge was understanding how the world outside football works. It is vastly different, and when you first enter it, you realise that some of the skills others developed while at university, you don’t have, and you feel like you are in the deep end.

Retirement is daunting, it’s scary and unknown. But now that I have stepped away [from sport] for a while, it’s the best thing I’ve done.

The positives are that you do learn those skills, you do develop, and you are opened to a really interesting world. I have been able to start public speaking, which I love. I love telling my story, and I want to help the younger generation gain more confidence in themselves.

I think retirement is daunting, it’s scary and unknown. But now that I have stepped away [from sport] for a while, it’s the best thing I’ve done. I got to achieve all I wanted to as an athlete: travel, make lifelong friends and experience the world with them. And now I get to have my own family, have new experiences, and allow myself to change and develop into a new version of me.”

Ellie Cole, 34, swimmer

“I started swimming at the age of three, for rehabilitation after I lost my right leg to cancer. I went through the normal learn-to-swim process that most Australian kids do until I was about 12 or 13, when I was inspired by the Sydney Olympics.

I joined the Australian Swim Team at a pretty young age. I went off to the World Swimming Championships in 2006 as a 14-year-old and was on it for nearly 17 years before retiring in 2022.

Swimming influenced every part of who I was, everything from how I structured my day to how I viewed success, even how I introduced myself. I was always known as ‘the swimmer’.

Being an athlete gave me a lot of confidence, and the better I got at sports, the more people started to look past my disability and focus on my achievements.

Deciding to retire was pretty easy, as by 25, my body was physically struggling and I felt I couldn’t keep going. I used to be able to just train and train and be OK. Then, after 25, the recovery is so different.

I also started to wonder what my life would look like beyond the next competition. My partner Silv [Silvia Scognamiglio] and I had been together for almost 10 years by that stage, and we really wanted to start a family. I was already struggling to stay awake during my training – without a baby.

I initially wanted to retire after the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, but ultimately decided to train an extra 12 months and make the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games my last. I actually announced that I would be doing my last race three times because I competed in one more event after Birmingham: the Duel in the Pool competition in Sydney.

We swam in the very first able-bodied-para relay; I swam alongside Emma McKeon. It was an iconic way to finish my swimming career, and in terms of the inclusivity and equality I’ve been chasing my whole career, it was a nice little bow to tie on.

Since then, quite a lot has happened in both my professional and personal life. I am mum to Felix, who’s now two. I wrote a children’s book about him last year that was published, and we’re trying to turn it into an animated series right now.

I work in the media with Channel Nine (Nine is the publisher of this masthead). I absolutely love working on the Olympics and Paralympics, in particular. And that’s going to become incredibly important as we go into Brisbane 2032. The landscape for sport, especially para sport, is changing so quickly, so the follow-up work is important to make sure it’s going in the right direction and that we have the most inclusive games we’ve ever had.”

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