Four-time Olympic medallist Jack Carlin announced his retirement from track cycling on Wednesday, 15 October, following more than a decade at the top end of his sport.
Citing the period after the Olympic Games Paris 2024, in which he replicated his Tokyo 2020 results with silver and bronze medals in the men’s team and individual sprints, respectively, the Scot took a break to regroup.
“After Paris 2024, I stepped away from the high-performance bubble to focus on my recovery and gave myself space to breathe, to heal and to figure out whether the hunger to go again for another Olympic cycle was there,” the five-time world medallist told British Cycling.
“Truth is, I was ready for change… and in this game, I believe that if you’re not 100% in, you’re not giving enough.”
The Briton steps away from the track but not from the sport, with one focus now on engaging fans ahead of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July next year.
“It’s hard to put into words how proud I feel looking back,” said the three-time Commonwealth Games medallist. “A young boy from Paisley, who worked to the bone, chasing a dream and somehow ended up competing against the best in the world, standing on podiums and becoming Scotland’s third most decorated male Olympian.”
Summing up his career in an interview with BBC Scotland, the 28-year-old concluded: “If someone said to ‘Wee Jack from Paisley’ a decade ago that he’d have four Olympic medals around his neck, he wouldn’t have believed them.”