Trailblazing skeleton silver medallist Jackie Narracott has confirmed she won’t compete at the next Olympics in Italy in 2026, announcing her retirement.
Narracott made Australian Olympic history at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, winning the country’s first sliding medal.
She is also the only Australian to win a skeleton World Cup gold medal.
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The 33-year-old Queenslander underwent knee surgery this year and said she realised she didn’t have the desire to work her way back to the top.
“The last 12 to 18 months have been a journey to get from winning the medal in Beijing, to then taking the year off and having knee surgery at the beginning of the year,” Narracott said in a statement.
“The rehab from that confirmed that I don’t have the mental or emotional capability reserves to do this again.
“To compete with the girls who are the best in the world, I know what I would have to put myself through and that is another Olympic season, and there’s nothing left.”
“The end of an era, and the end of me being an athlete, and that’s a hard transition to make, when in my head I have been an athlete since I was nine. All I ever wanted to be was an Olympian, so to get there twice I am very proud of that, and to medal is phenomenal and well beyond anything I thought I would ever get when I first started.
Her uncle, Paul Narracott, the first Australian to compete at both a Summer and Winter Olympic Games, paved the way for her success.
But she was forced to relocate to England where she was coached by her husband Dom Parsons, who won a bronze in skeleton for Great Britain at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Competing in two Olympics, Narracott had to prepare in Europe and Korea for her event, with no sliding facilities or training program in Australia, and said she contributed $100,000 of her own money to achieve success.
She also had to recover from a severe head knock that almost ended her career in 2018, left feeling “drunk”, dizzy and emotional, then spending six months completing concussion rehab.
Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman said Narracott’s determination to succeed was to be admired.
“Jackie went on to win that incredible silver medal, but she did it for years and years on the smell of an oily rag, she had to maintain her own motivation and desires,’‘ he said.
“She got herself in the right form at the right time, so that was a fantastic reward for her for what was a long career of striving almost solo on that woman’s skeleton tour to produce that end result and that success, and I can only wish her the very best.”