Stepping away from elite sport is often spoken about as a single decision: retirement, transition, the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. In reality, athletes describe something far more complex.
The move away from elite competition can bring uncertainty, loss of structure and difficult questions around identity, purpose and belonging. It can also open the door to new opportunities, but not always in a straightforward way.
To explore what that transition really feels like, we spoke to five former elite athletes from our Unlocked alumni. Their experiences were different, but common themes quickly emerged around the challenge of rebuilding routine, redefining success and working out who you are when your sport no longer sits at the centre of everyday life.
Abi Irozuru
Athletics
Unlocked Cohort 3
Alice Thorsby
Sailing
Unlocked Cohort 2
Amelia Campbell
Athletics
Unlocked Cohort 3
Charlotte Hodgkins – Byrne
Rowing
Unlocked Cohort 1
Laura Siddall
Triathlon
Unlocked Cohort 3
What was the biggest challenge for you when you stepped away from elite sport?
The challenges athletes have to face when they make the decision to step away from elite sport are wide and varied. For athletes used to structure, clarity and purpose, retirement often means navigating a space where nothing is clearly mapped out. For some, like Abi, the challenge is understanding that you’re never going to be able to replicate the high you get from competing and then working out how you even get close to it. “How do I know what I’m going to be great at, not just good, because as athletes, we all want to be the best, but when you go into a new field, you’re not going to be the best anymore, because you’re starting again.”
A sentiment echoed by Amelia, is this sense of uncertainty and the need to look for something you’re passionate about, describing retirement as “having to literally start over my career outside of sport which was terrifying and I felt very unprepared.”
For most athletes, the challenge runs deeper into identity. Charlotte spoke about the need to redefine who she was outside of sport: “Understanding who I was, and understanding how I wanted to define success for myself.” She pointed to the often-quoted idea that “athletes are the only people to die twice.” A stark reflection of how all-consuming a sporting identity can be.
As with identity, there is also the loss of community and routine. Laura described how stepping away meant losing not just training, but her entire environment, “I lost that community and I didn’t have another. It felt like it was taken away and I was forgotten and invisible.” Alongside came the challenge of redefining the relationship with training itself, after years of structured, high-volume work, “How do you go from 25+ hours a week, to trying to work out what that looks like when not competing?” Laura adds.
But let’s not forget that for the majority of athletes, navigating transition happens before you make it official, which can be emotionally draining. Alice described the emotional weight of making the decision and carrying it privately as the biggest challenge, keeping it from teammates and coaches as she went through the process. While she ultimately felt relief, saying, “the moment I said it, I was like, yes, this was the right decision,” it was the build-up to that moment that proved most difficult.
There’s no doubt when listening to these athletes’ experiences, the end of an elite sporting career is multifaceted and is not just about stopping competition. When you lose the system that defined your identity, structure and purpose, the overarching challenge becomes redefining what those things look like beyond elite sport.
How has your sense of identity shifted since stepping away from elite sport?
For many athletes, the shift in identity is something that evolves over time rather than changing overnight. For Charlotte, that process has ultimately been positive. While it took a few years of processing, she now feels more in control of who she is becoming. “I realise now I’m actually proud of the identity I’m crafting, whereas I previously spent time trying to become what I thought was expected of me.”
Others, like Alice, described a more complex and fluctuating experience. Since stepping away five years ago, she found herself questioning her achievements, especially in the early stages, “I felt like a failure, like I wasn’t that good,” she said. It took time, but that perspective has changed. “It took me a while, but actually, what I did was incredibly impressive. I should be proud of what I’ve done.”
For Abi, identity was something she approached with real intention. Having experienced a more difficult first transition out of sport in 2016, she was far more conscious the second time of the need to build a broader sense of self beyond athletics, working deliberately with UK Sports Institute to develop multiple identities alongside being an athlete and Olympian.
But even with that preparation, the challenge didn’t disappear. “When people asked, ‘what do you do?’ I was like, well, who am I?” she said, highlighting how difficult it can be to articulate identity without the clarity sport once provided.
Over time, that began to change. “Now I lead with, ‘I used to jump into a sandpit for a living’ and then say what I do now,” she explained, describing how reclaiming her athletic identity as part of her introduction became a turning point, not something to move on from, but something to build from.
The identity shift was more closely tied to belonging for Laura. While she describes herself as fundamentally unchanged, “I’m still me,” the external perception of her identity felt very different. “It felt like people thought I was useless and insignificant now and not of value. I was already irrelevant.” The loss of that recognition and connection had a profound impact on how she saw her place in the world.
For other athletes like Amelia, stepping away meant letting go of a version of herself that had been necessary for performance. As an athlete, she was “fierce, angry and maybe even scary,” a persona that no longer served her outside of competition. Transitioning into coaching has helped reshape that identity, allowing her to find a new sense of purpose. “I want to be what my athletes need and it has given me a real purpose.”
More than an athlete
Identity after sport isn’t necessarily lost, however, it has to be reworked and sometimes rebuilt over time. For many, it is expanding who they can be rather than letting go of who they were.
If stepping away from elite sport begins with uncertainty, identity is often the next layer athletes have to navigate.
The loss of competition can feel immediate, but understanding who you are beyond performance can take much longer. For some, that process means rediscovering parts of themselves that were put aside. For others, it means learning that sporting identity does not disappear, it simply becomes part of something broader.
In part two, we explore how athletes redefine success after elite sport, what they wish they had known before transition and how they answer the question at the centre of it all: who are you without your sport?
Thanks to a grant from the Jacobs Futura Foundation, the Women’s Sport Trust launched a new Unlocked programme in November 2025. This funding supports not only the latest cohort, but also strengthens our growing community of 111 athlete alumni. Find out more about the Unlocked programme here.