Decorated Gymnast Lauren Mitchell Retreats

Australia’s most decorated gymnast, Lauren Mitchell, has announced her retirement which she decided during a recent trip to Europe.

The 25-year-old is only the second Australian woman gymnast to win medals at World Championships, but the first to ever win gold. She made history in 2010 when she became Australia’s first female World Gymnastics Champion on floor in Rotterdam. She is also two-time Olympian, and a 2009 World Championship silver medalist on balance beam and floor.

Mitchell has had multiple successes in a career she started when she was six, but in June 2015 she suffered what might just be the biggest challenge to her career yet. She was withdrawn from the upcoming 2015 World Universaide due to a serious knee injury that occurred during a training session. She was working on her floor routine when she sustained a ruptured ACL, adding to her ankle problems.

Nine months after this injury, she went back to training and even almost qualified for the Rio Olympics. However, Australia failed to qualify for the team event, leaving just one individual spot available for Rio. It was because of her knee injury that Mitchell’s chances to be chosen for that spot were slim, and Larrissa Miller was instead chosen.

On a recent interview, Mitchell said that tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee and missing out on a spot at the Rio Games were two of the hardest times of her glittering career.

The Real Reason For Mitchell’s Retirement

Indeed, those were trying times. However, Mitchell said that those weren’t the reasons for her retirement, or the recent announcement that the WAIS gymnastics program would be axed. Even the lure of competing at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018 wasn’t enough to spur her on.

Mitchell revealed that, "It would have been an amazing experience to compete in front of a home crowd. […]But I don't think mentally I would be able to push myself to be good enough to be able to make the team again. I've given everything that I could have to the sport, and I have no regrets. Mentally I couldn't have pushed anymore.”

Mitchell’s Future Plans

“I love the sport of gymnastics and I will still be involved in some way, shape or form.”

After her retirement, Mitchell plans to start mentoring the younger athletes and start motivational speaking not only to inspire the next generation of elite athletes, but also to inspire people in their daily lives.

“I’d love to give back to the community when they have given me so much,” she said.

Despite Australia’s failure to have an artistic gymnastics team in the Olympics for the first time in 30 years, Mitchell believed that there was a bright future for the sport nationally. She believed that there was amazing talent throughout Australia and if they can harness that talent and put it all together, they would go really well.

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