World champion New Zealand rower Zoe McBride says putting her mental and physical health ahead of sporting success is behind her shock retirement.
Zoe McBride Photo: Photosport
McBride's decision came at the age of just 25, and only four months out from the Tokyo Olympics where she and Jackie Kiddle would have been strong contenders for gold in the lightweight double sculls.
Lighweight female rowers can't be over 59 kilograms and McBride said the battle to keep her weight down was taking too much of a toll.
"Every year asking myself to get down to weight and manipulating my body just created some really bad and unhealthy habits in my mind around my body and food.
"It got to a point where it was too much and it was affecting my health and my life.
"It's really hard to talk about but I was so ashamed to talk about it for a really long time because sometimes when you're in a position like that it doesn't matter if it's a sport, or if it's whatever scenario ... there can be a lot of shame around it and stigma.
"I struggled for a while and I got to a point where I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. Then it became easier to talk about and it became easier to get myself back into a position where I was heading on the right track."
While the decision would come across as sudden to some, McBride said she had been considering it for some time.
It started during the initial lockdown after Covid-19 arrived on New Zealand shores last year, with a stress fracture in her leg proving difficult to deal with and leading her to consider her career.
That contemplation led to the realisation her physical and mental health were simply suffering too much as a result of needing to keep her weight down.
Having worked her way back to a "very healthy" position, McBride said she wasn't prepared to begin taking weight off once more.
Photo: © Steve McArthur / @RowingCelebration
Not that it made the decision easy, especially considering what it meant for Kiddle.
"It's really, really hard.
"It's never easy when you are in a team because my decisions and actions are going to have a massive impact on someone else but at the end of the day, Jackie and I have always supported each other and been there for each other.
"We want each other in the boat, but we also want each other to be healthy and happy and able to race.
"She wants me to be in the best position for myself as well and I know that absolutely I would be exactly the same."
The decision also came at a time when several sports in New Zealand had been or were grappling with issues around athlete welfare, many of which had arisen in high performance environments.
But McBride said she had always thrived on the mental challenge of elite level sport, and noted her situation as different to those issues.
"I have nothing bad to say about Rowing New Zealand or the high performance environment that I was in. I've always been really well looked after and had a lot of support.
"For me it was more, you can internalise things and then sometimes the snowball starts rolling and then you don't really know how to get out of it yourself.
"Rowing New Zealand have been very supportive and they're so supportive now. A lot of some of those other things are different to what I'm talking about now."
McBride was set to pursue a career in marketing, the field she had completed a degree during her rowing career.
She would take a focus on women's health, remain based in Cambridge, and was keen to use her experiences to help people who were now going through similar struggles.
Rowing NZ, meanwhile, confirmed Kiddle would continue training as part of their high performance programme at Lake Karapiro.