After achieving Olympic redemption in Paris, the British 400m hurdler wasted little time quitting athletics to take up teaching full-time.
As the winter gloom deepens, Jesse Knight’s tasks have taken on a rather different tone than in recent years. “I have to compete with the kids on the playground,” he says.
With minimal fanfare – so busy has she been with her new life that she has yet to officially announce her career change on social media – Knight retired as a professional athlete shortly after the Paris Olympics.A few weeks later, she began working as a full-time primary school teacher. And just like that, one life replaced another.
As someone whose elite track and field career lasted just four and a half years, conventional sporting convention suggests that Knight was just getting started on the track. had begun to cross his radar.
“I was advocating retirement because it felt like the right time to end the Olympic cycle,” he says. It felt like everything was in place. It’s so surreal how quickly I’ve changed.”
The decision to call time so early on in his running career required a rather harsh dose of reality for Knight. indoor and outdoor relay medals.He won five British titles in the 400m or 400m hurdles but there was a sense of completeness and perhaps reaching its natural limit.
Jesse Knight (Getty)
“I probably could have gone on for a few more years, but I knew I didn’t want to do another Olympic cycle,” he says , I know my body wouldn’t save itself.I kind of thought. “What’s the point?”
“Without going on and becoming a world medalist, I’ve done everything. Deep down, I know I’ve tried everything. We’ve tried different types of training and different strides. So I feel deep down, I could have gone on for two more years and it would have been the same. I could have run 54 seconds for another couple of years.
“When you’re in the bubble of elite athletes, you always want more. You can get stuck in the desire for more, instead of appreciating and recognizing what you’ve already achieved. I started to leave the championship, where I only made the semi-finals. Later, it’s the top 15 in the world, but that wasn’t enough for me anymore.
“So I’m satisfied. I think I’ll appreciate my career more as time goes on. I’m really proud of my career, but I’m ready to leave.”
This is an abridged version of a feature that appears in the December issue of AW magazine, which out here now.
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