Two-time Olympic champion Joanna Rowsell-Shand has announced her retirement from international competition after a decade at the top of her sport.
Talent-spotted by British Cycling aged 15 while at school in southwest London, she first started racing bikes the following year and, transferring to Manchester won her first world championship in the team pursuit at the age of 19 in 2008.
The women’s version of the event, over 3,000 metres and with three riders was introduced to the Olympic Games for the first time at London 2012.
There, riding alongside Laura Kenny (riding under her maiden name, Trott) and Dani King, the trio clinched gold in World Record time to the delight of the home crowd.
Last year at Rio, Rowsell-Shand helped Team GB retain the title, with the event changed to have four riders and a race distance of 4,000 metres. Kenny returned to the line-up, with Katie Archibald and Elinor Barker making up the quartet.
Kenny was one of many who took to social media this morning to wish Rowsell-Shand all the best in retirement.
Now aged 28, Rowsell-Shand – who competed under the surname Rowsell until her marriage in July 2015 – is also a former world champion in the individual pursuit, and on the road has won the British national time trial championship.
She broke the news in a statement published on her website- reproduced in full below – which was accompanied by a picture of the medals she has amassed during her career.
It’s been one hell of a ride! THANK YOU everyone https://t.co/tTEPog4oP8 pic.twitter.com/yV3ASjmCE3
— Joanna Rowsell Shand (@JoRowsellShand) March 14, 2017
Having been part of the GB Cycling Team for over 10 years, travelling around the world racing my bike, today I am announcing my retirement from international cycling competition. I have achieved everything I’ve ever wanted to in cycling including 5 World Titles, 4 European Titles, Commonwealth Gold and 2 Olympic Golds as well as countless World Cup and National Championship medals across both team and individual events. But more valuable than any of these are the special friends for life, amazing memories made, and the transformation from shy school girl to confident woman.
I have enjoyed this fabulous career and the decision to step away has been the hardest I’ve ever had to make, but now is the time for me to move on. I believe I have more to offer the world and I’m now looking forward to the next phase of my life and new challenges.
I want to thank the amazing team at British Cycling; from the world class team behind the team who work tirelessly to ensure we have the best preparation for events, to the very first youth coaches who talent spotted me back when I was 15. I couldn’t have done it without you! Thank you to all my team mates past and present, the cycling clubs and teams I have been a part of, my brilliant sponsors, the amazing fans for their fantastic encouragement, and to my family for their incredible support throughout my career.
I won’t be stepping away from the cycling world completely and I’m enjoying doing some coaching work including setting up my own company, Rowsell Shand Coaching, and I’m also training for L’Etape du Tour in July which will be my longest bike ride ever! Being more accustomed to racing for 4km, the challenge of riding 180km in mountainous terrain will be a long way from what I am used to but I am never one for shying away from a tough target.
I want to finish by wishing the Great Britain Cycling Team the very best of luck for this Olympic cycle.
20 thoughts on “Two-time Olympic champ Joanna Rowsell-Shand retires at age 28”
Fantastic cyclist – will be a
Fantastic cyclist – will be a big loss to the track programme.
Good luck to her in whatever she does next.
Dear Jess Varnish,
Dear Jess Varnish,
“I have enjoyed this fabulous career and the decision to step away has been the hardest I’ve ever had to make, but now is the time for me to move on. I believe I have more to offer the world and I’m now looking forward to the next phase of my life and new challenges.
I want to thank the amazing team at British Cycling; from the world class team behind the team who work tirelessly to ensure we have the best preparation for events, to the very first youth coaches who talent spotted me back when I was 15. I couldn’t have done it without you!”
A champion gives her view and moves on to the next challenge.
Please shut up.
Kind regards,
Me
alansmurphy wrote:
Classy.
VeloPeo wrote:
Hardly.
SingleSpeed wrote:
Single Speed, meet Sarcasm.
Sarcasm meet Single Speed….
Yours is a pretty cretinous
Yours is a pretty cretinous comment alansmurphy.
alansmurphy wrote:
This loon again.
Oooooh hark at her!
Oooooh hark at her!
I was reiterating your point 🙂
Let’s not get all girly about
Let’s not get all girly about it.
The point being made is quite a simple one – in all walks of life people will be treated differently and will take differing levels of offence or otherwise at the treatment. I’m not suggesting sexism, racism, other isms are appropriate in the workplace but if my boss was grumpy and a bit shouty one morning then I would take it as that. There has been very little from Jess that suggests a systemic issue, furthermore it appears to be sour grapes and attention seeking to prolong a career.
There’s no hope for some
There’s no hope for some people, keep digging the hole you are in.
check12 wrote:
Bit concerning when this guy says in another thread that he has a daughter…
Jackson wrote:
… doing taekwondo. Perhaps having a sexist father builds up a lot of aggression that needs vented.
alansmurphy wrote:
oh, right
You raise a good point,
You raise a good point, possibly, once…
Yet nobody seems to be
Yet nobody seems to be offering a different view…
One athlete is happy with BC, one is unhappy. Such is life.
Your boss tells you you’re
Your boss tells you you’re done. She knows you’re done.
You ask why – she says she has proof.
You ask to see the proof. Nope.
She tells you to go and have a baby.
How do you respond to that? Shrug your man shoulders, wave your wang around and go and get a pint and another job, cos, you know, Bloke?
Or try and get it resolved, and when you still can’t find out why they’re really booting you out, make it official and maybe let it slip to the press, because you do a job that they’re interested in?
That different enough for you?
Some of you sanctimonious
Some of you sanctimonious pricks really do need to get out more – the “girly” comment was clearly in jest. Grow up.
And commenting about my children on a forum yet trying to hold the moral high ground. Seriously?
Davel, the point about proof is interesting and I suppose what separates sport from a normal job. Those in a ‘normal’ environment will usually have a job spec, performance indicators etc. Not being privvy to the reams of data BC and their coaches would have it’s hard to say whether her performance was dropping or not. But again, bringing sport into it, coaches et al often make big decisions based on gut feelings and things that aren’t really measurable. Not every athlete ‘scorned’ has come back on the attack with such wild and ranging claims.
To take your analogy forwards, I was made redundant this year though I could quite easily prove the financial savings i was making my company far exceeded my wage. The business was cutting back and the decision came from within 4 walls many miles away. So much as I wanted to wave my wang (despite it being cold), I never sought to claim it was because of my haircut, because I have medical conditions, because I’m sexist etc.
Did Jess get dropped because the men were getting more time on the track, probably not.
If only this comments section
If only this comments section had ended after the first one.
<Insert Ron_Burgundy_Well_That_Escalated_Quickly.gif>
But isn’t that the point:
But isn’t that the point: cycling *is* measurable. Track cycling is very simple, for a sport – it doesn’t require huge varieties of skills to combine in some sort of X factor. If you can handle a bike round a track and churn out n watts for x seconds, you’re in. That’s way more measurable and comparable than your KPIs, and even a decent amateur knows what their VO2max and FTP figures are.
BC would have had reams on Varnish, and they and she should have been clear on goals at whichever parts of seasons/worlds/Olympic cycles. So it should be easy and unemotional to drop someone who isn’t cutting the mustard. If that justification via objective KPIs wasn’t forthcoming, I think it’s fair enough to question why.
I think Jess knows perfectly
I think Jess knows perfectly well why she was dropped.
And I am sure it had very little to do with her athletic abilities and everything to do with her public performances… one particular performance she gave to a mic.
BC were incredibly poor in their response, Jess rightfully called them out, but then everything got a buit messy and based around sexism.
I wonder if Jess’ original objective was to highlight the sexism, or if that was merely the element that stuck with the press and went forward.
In my opinion no one comes out perfectly from this.
However, lets not focus on that, lets focus on the retirement of an incredible athlete, who achieved so much, and in my opinion without enough public appreciation.
Congratulations on the next step, Olympic cycling will miss you!