Britain’s double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes announces retirement
LONDON: Double Olympic champion Kelly Holmes has announced her retirement from athletics and will not now bow out at next year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne as planned.
The 35-year-old former army sergeant said Tuesday she had been badly affected by the death of a man she met while visiting her physiotherapist in Ireland. And she admitted she lacked the motivation to continue in the sport after winning gold in the 800 metres and 1,500m in Athens last year.
Holmes' double gold in Athens was the highlight of a career peppered with injury and disappointment. Holmes met the man while she was having physio with Gerard Hartmann in Ireland but was stunned to learn soon afterwards he had been given four weeks to live.
This changed the athlete's outlook and she confirmed she had achieved all she wanted in her athletics career, also revealing a lack of motivation meant it was the correct time to retire.
"It really shook me up - one minute I was having lunch with him and then he has four weeks to live and he did die," she said. "I have achieved everything I wanted in my life," she said.
Turkey's 3-time Olympic champ Halil Mutlu tests positive
ANKARA: Turkey's three-time Olympic Champion Halil Mutlu has been banned for two years by the International Weightlifting Federation for using anabolic steroids.
The ban will end on April 20, 2007, the Turkish Weightlifting Federation's secretary-general Mehmet Turhan said. Mutlu has denied knowingly taking nandrolone, an anabolic steroid that boosts muscle growth, which was detected in a urine sample at the European championships in Sofia in April, where the so-called 'Little Dynamo' snatched three golds in the 62kg category.
Turhan said Mutlu, 32, was still determined to go for a fourth Olympic title at the 2008 Games in Beijing. Another Turkish weightlifter, Sedat Artuc, the 2004 Olympic bronze medallist in the 56kg category, was also banned for two years until September 6, 2007, for shunning an out-of-competition doping test here in September on grounds that he was sick.
The Turkish Weightlifting Federation was last month fined $100,000 and suspended until May 31, 2006.
