Olympic INSIDER

Olympian-turned-broadcaster Jeanette Kwakye reports on her love of sport, who she’s excited to watch at the Paris Games and why she loves dressage...

- Sarah Sellens

For a lot of professional sports people, there's a point when you wake up one morning and just know - maybe because your body's made the decision for you and it's not a decision that you're mentally or emotionally ready to make - physically, your time's up. I had a plan and, when I retired I was relatively young (I was 30) but I had enough energy and enthusiasm to try my hand at something new. That was quite important because I could have gone on for another Olympic cycle. It would've taken me to 34 and, by then, I probably wouldn't have started my family or done a number of different things. So, actually, it was the right time for me.

I still train as regularly as I can, as much as my body will allow, and as much as I need to. I'm a tech fitness junkie. If it's tech and it's fitness, it's the closest thing that I've got to personal coaching without actually having a physical coach. I work a lot in numbers and stats and making sure that I feel encouraged to push on - I'm very goal-driven like that when it comes to my fitness.

People always ask me 'Do you still run?', but the running I did was very different from the running that everyone else does. I ran fast, not far, and it's difficult to train as a sprinter if you're not a sprinter. I take the other elements of my training - like the weights and core work, the circuit work, the Pilates - and that's the stuff I love about my training at the minute.