The 31-year-old tried retirement after winning gold in Rio but the call of the sport to which she has dedicated her life was too strong
After the Rio Olympics, Hannah Mills tried retirement out to see what it felt like. “I knew that Saskia was going to retire,” the 31-year-old says of her long-time sailing partner, Saskia Clark, whom she competed with at two Games and won first silver then gold in the 470 dinghy class, “but for me the path wasn’t clear. It was all up in the air, and I hadn’t had anything organised. I just wanted to have focus, have something else to do to look forward to and experience.”
So Mills took a room at her brother’s house and some work experience at the activity clothing company Musto. “It was a precaution”, she says. “I knew how empty I’d felt after
London in terms of having such an incredible buildup, an amazing experience but then it just suddenly ends. It’s actually hard; it’s really, really hard. Like anything you’ve been building up to in life it’s really exciting and then you just feel empty and a bit lost. So win or lose in Rio I wanted to make sure I had got some things planned, regardless of whether I was sailing again.”