KEY POINTS:
There will be a gaping hole when New Zealand march at next year's Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing. The retirement of cycling's Sarah Ulmer will deprive the team in black of one of their finest Olympic and Commonwealth Games athletes and among their most popular.
Beijing will be the first Ulmer-less Games since 1992 after announcing she had lost a seven-year battle with a nerve injury to her left leg.
The decision to end a genuinely great career comes in the slipstream of good friend Hamish Carter, the triathlete whose years of success also peaked in unforgettable fashion atop the 2004 Athens Olympics podium.
August 22 will always be remembered for Ulmer's world record-smashing ride for gold, her gasping for breath at the finish line in the clutches of partner/coach Brendon Cameron and the subsequent trademark smile.
Ruthless on the track but effervescent and self-deprecating off it, those traits were on show this weekend as the 31-year-old reflected on the 16 years since father Gary plonked her on a bike for the first time while attending Auckland's Diocesan School for Girls.
She said stepping away from such a selfish, absorbing sport made her realise how much support she had received from others, reserving special praise for Cameron and her father.
Gruelling pre-school rides in the Waitakere Ranges with Gary laid the foundation for her early feats, including twin gold medals at the 1994 junior world championships in Ecuador in the points race and the event she would make her own - the 3000m individual pursuit, 12 laps of lung-busting concentration.
The medal collection grew steadily at World Cups and Commonwealth Games but it wasn't until Athens that everything came together.
Less than three months after breaking the world record in winning world championships gold at Melbourne, she rode the race of a lifetime to surge past Australian Katie Mactier in a scarcely-believable 3m 24.537s, a time no one has gone near since.
"You look back and you realise just how euphoric and perfect that was," Ulmer told TV3.
"If I ever see coverage of the race, it's like 'crikey, how did we do that'?"
Cameron, a New Zealand track representative for nine years, was the cornerstone of her campaign, firstly when talking her out of retirement thoughts a year earlier.
The pair then embarked on a gruelling preparation, reaching dizzying heights of commitment and effort.
"If I'd known what I've known after Athens in terms of what we did and how professional we were, I could have emulated that a little earlier in my career maybe," Ulmer said.
"But if I'd lived the life I did before Athens - basically completely one-dimensional - I would have probably quit years earlier."
Ulmer's popularity exploded after Athens and brought with it necessary changes.
Always accessible through the early part of her career, she was also forced to erect a media wall after Athens to cope with escalating demands for her time.
It left the country wondering quite how bad the injury was that forced her to pull out of the time trial at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games 18 months ago.
Having scaled her track Everest, she switched to road racing but the worsening injury meant she could show only glimpses of her massive potential.
Only this weekend has she explained her frustrations.
"We've uncovered every stone and visited every single person that I possibly could have to try and help me find a definitive cure," she said, describing a feeling of catharsis at finally making a decision.
"I've been out of competitive cycling for a year and I'm firmly entrenched in loads of other things now," she said.
"I've always kept one foot in the cycling door, but not firmly, so now that I've made the decision, I'm really happy with it."
A recent visit to a Christchurch specialist convinced her to pull the pin after learning surgery would guarantee nothing.
"It's been frustrating just not being able to make progress, which is what being an athlete's all about," she said.
"On the flip side, I've had fantastic momentum in the other parts of my life which will carry on now that I can officially entrench myself into it."
She will throw her time into her business Sarah Ulmer Brand (SUB), which produces sports clothing, equipment and food while encouraging women to be involved in sport.
She will spend time with her dogs, build on a newly discovered interest in golf and support Cameron, who intends to contest Ironman New Zealand next year.
- NZPA
