Adlington admits retirement decision may hang on whereabouts of coach Furniss
FOUR-time Olympic medallist Rebecca Adlington insists she will only carry on swimming if her relationship with coach Bill Furniss is maintained as the decision over potential retirement rolls on.
The 23-year-old, who won double gold at Beijing 2008 and double bronze at London 2012, has already effectively ended her Olympic career by stating Rio 2016 is ‘probably a little bit out of reach’.
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Rebecca Adlington
However Adlington hasn’t ruled out attending her second Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 but now it appears that will only be the case if her coach Furniss stays by her side.
Furniss, who coaches at the Nova Centurion club, has been linked with the head coach role at the national governing body British Swimming as they seek a replacement to Dennis Pursley.
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But Adlington is set to cycling across Zambia for charity and, while she sticks by her comments regarding Furniss, she insists she will think long and hard before coming to a conclusion.
“If I was going to carry on, I would only want to be coached by Bill,” Adlington told BBC Sport. “We need to sit down and see whether he thinks I have more in me and what he wants to do as a coach.
“Rio is probably a little bit out of reach. I will be 27 and I do think that for a female distance swimmer it is difficult.
“If I was a sprinter, I would never even question it and would be back in the water already, but it's just whether I can move down to the 200m and 400m.
“Bill is the only one who can really answer that for me. To be honest, after all of these years, he knows me better than I know myself.
“It’s not something I will rush into as it’s such a big decision and I’ll have to sacrifice a lot to be at the top.
“It’ll be something that I’m happy with and both Bill and I are comfortable with and confident about.”
© Sportsbeat 2012
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