Athletics News: The setting was nothing special, a nondescript conference room overlooking a car park in Sheffield, a city famous for steel, not gold. But that is where Kelly Holmes chose to announce this year will be her last full season.
The Olympic 800 and 1,500 metres champion caught even Fast Track, the marketing agents for UK Athletics televised events, by surprise when she used a press conference they had arranged to reveal that the British grand prix at the city's Don Valley Stadium on August 21st will be her final appearance on a track.
Holmes opened the conference by saying: "This will be my last track season. I won't be doing any more indoors and Sheffield will be my last track race in the UK."
Unlike the announcement of the six-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong at a press conference in Georgia earlier in the week, Holmes's statement was not expected.
She had taken the decision two weeks ago but kept it such a secret she did not even tell her manager about it until Wednesday, when she visited London to collect an award from the Association of International Journalists as their sportswoman of the year.
That was the 26th award she has received since Athens, the most prestigious of which were being made a dame and voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. It has made up for several years of injury and illness that up to Athens had blighted her career.
"I was out on a run and I just thought: 'I am enjoying what I am doing now and what I am getting ready for now, but I don't want to keep going because I don't have to now," Holmes said.
"I've achieved everything I have ever wanted, but I really want this year because I want to stand on the track and be announced as a double Olympic champion and enjoy that feeling and make up for the things that have been so hard leading up to now. I want to make up for that this year by thinking I'm there because I want to be and I can be, not because I have to fight to get there."
Holmes, who turned 35 on Tuesday, may extend her career until March 2006 and run in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but also acknowledged she would quit immediately if she suffered another serious injury.
The former army sergeant is continuing to train and had been up at 6am on Wednesday and yesterday to fit in runs. She is due to visit South Africa on Monday for a short period of intense preparation for a summer she hopes will include the world championships in Helsinki in August.
"They are obviously there on the agenda still and I will decide as I go through the season whether I am going to compete, but it will depend on fitness levels and if everything goes to plan," said Holmes.
"At some stage it is going to come to an end, and for me it is obviously the right time when I decide and I have decided I don't want to go any further than the Commonwealth Games, if I even get there.
"I am still competitive this year and have some great races, but I know I can't keep going and at the end of the day it gets harder and harder. I want to race this year and say thanks to everybody. Obviously a lot of the decisions of when I hang up my spikes depend on how this season pans out.
"I hope I don't have any major injury problems because I don't want to fight through those problems again. I don't need to. I have had enough of it."
Holmes is being paid a total of £200,000 to appear in races in Britain in Glasgow on June 5th, the AAA championships in Manchester on July 9th-10th, Crystal Palace on July 22nd and Sheffield. Her only international appearance arranged so far is in Cork.
But the money Holmes will earn from racing this year should pale into insignificance during the next few years, according to the PR consultant Max Clifford, who estimates she should earn £1 million over the next year from commercial endorsements and 10 times that in the three years immediately after her retirement.
Guardian Service
