Rowing: Twins happy to have retired

New Zealand's charge for rowing gold is familiar, but two names synonymous with the success of the past decade are missing.

And Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell aren't missing it one bit. The double Olympic champions, who retired after winning the double scull gold at Beijing last year, have moved on with no regrets, no pangs of wanting to be back out on the water.

Georgina lives in North Canterbury with husband Sam Earl, works as a teacher aide and has enrolled for Teachers College next year.

Caroline is doing a one-year floristry course at the Waikato Institute of Technology and works two days a week in a flower shop in Cambridge. And she loves it.

They first went to the world champs in 1998 in an eight before, in 2000, embarking on life in the two-seat boat, which yielded three world and two Olympic titles.

Caroline admits rowing doesn't occupy her mind much, apart from times like this when it is a major sporting focal point.

"I guess we didn't know if we'd miss it or not, whether it would be the right or wrong decision," she said yesterday of deciding to retire. "Now we realise it was the right one."

Even when rowing, she and her twin sister, now 30, were not the sort to sit on the internet perusing the results of rivals. So it's not a big leap to appreciate their interests are drifting in other directions.

Indeed, Caroline doubts she and partner, former Olympic rower Carl Meyer, will see the finals tonight.

"Carl is doing a two-day multisport so I'm going to be picking up bikes and boats all round Coromandel," Caroline laughed. "Whether we get to a TV or not, I don't think so."

They loved their lifestyle when competing, and Caroline calls herself "a morning person" - if no longer of the 5am variety.

Caroline is delighted with New Zealand's continuing success and reflected on life apart from her sister after having so much of their lives intertwined.

"I never thought I'd miss her as much as I do," she said. "We're lucky. We meet up a few times a month and it's cool. It's more quality time than being forced to spend each day with each other."