17 December 2020

Britain’s top sailer Hannah Mills considered retirement following Tokyo 2020 postponement

British sailing star Hannah Mills says she questioned whether she could do another year of training after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were postponed. 

The 32 year-old, who won an Olympic gold medal at Rio in 2016 in the women’s 470, had planned to retire after the Games this summer. 

She said: “I’d be lying if I said the question of ‘can I do another year?’ didn’t cross my mind.

“As a slightly older athlete, you do question it. Physically, another year can be quite a big deal."

Mills has three World Championship gold medals to her name and a silver medal from the 2014 European Championships.

“There’s also the mental process you have to go through to get yourself in the right place to perform. It’s really challenging and draining and takes a lot out of me. You put everything else in your life on the backburner in those six to eight months before an Olympic Games," she told Wales Online.

“Every day you wake up with that butterfly feeling in your stomach knowing it’s a day closer.

“There were definite questions about whether I could do it again but ultimately, training to be part of an Olympic Games is such an amazing thing.

“It’s just such a cool thing and so that feeling didn’t last too long.”

Mills added that it took her ‘a good few weeks’ to ‘rationalise’ everything. 

The Olympic Games are due to begin on July 23 in 2021, and Mills and partner Eilidh McIntyre have already been selected to compete for Team GB.

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