Photo: Steve McArthur / www.photosport.nz
The country's most successful female rower, Kerri Williams, has announced her retirement from the sport.
One of only five New Zealand women to claim Olympic gold, silver and bronze, Williams got to the top of the podium in the coxless pair and helped her team to second place in the women's eights in Tokyo.
The 30-year-old also picked up five World Championship titles since beginning her international career 11 years ago.
"Mind and body wise, I'm ready for a change," Williams said in a statement. "I probably could have kept going, but I'm satisfied with where I'm at and what I've achieved and it's time to do something else."
Kerri Williams (stroke) and Grace Prendergast (bow), New Zealand Womens Pair. World Champions, Gold Medal, Czech Republic, 2022. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
At the Paris Games in July, she became just the fifth New Zealand woman to win gold, silver and bronze medals at an Olympics, alongside Barbara Kendall, Dame Valerie Adams, Lydia Ko and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott.
Williams was stroke of the women's four, with her sister Jackie Gowler, Davina Waddy and Phoebe Spoors, which finished third just 0.44sec ahead of Romania.
"I'm really proud of us as a crew for what we put out there that day," Williams said.
"We just constantly had to step and step and step. I was like, 'Wow, how many more gears do we have?' I guess that's the cool thing, I've constantly surprised myself throughout my career that there's often another gear that you don't think is there."
In 2019, Williams and Grace Prendergast became the first New Zealand female athletes to win a World Rowing Championship title in two events in the same year, the women's pair and eight.
It was New Zealand's first World Championship win in the women's eight.
She and Prendergast backed that performance up at the Tokyo Olympics with a gold medal in the pair and silver in the eight.
- Reuters / RNZ
