20 August, 2010 10:21AM AEST

Retirement of an Olympic legend

He's competed at six Olympics and won three gold medals, so champion rower James Tomkins thinks it's a good time to bow out.

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Olympic great James Tomkins has announced his retirement from competitive rowing at the tender age of 45.

He's won three Olympic gold medals after competing at six Games but, as he explained to Adam Spencer, he did think about going to a seventh...

"I was pretty sure I was going to retire but there was this just this little nagging bit saying 'maybe London?' it was probably a bit of ego, a bit of vanity to think I could keep going."

Had he gone to London, James would have been the first Australian to compete at seven consecutive Olympics, and he admits that potential record weighed on his mind.

"The fact that it was floating in my mind probably meant that's why I should hang it up... When you start chasing records it's the wrong motivation I think."

So how does the 45 year old James Tomkins compare to his younger self?

"The lead in to China a couple of years ago, I was holding my own with the younger guys... Skills and technique, not a problem.

"The endurance not a problem, but just that explosiveness, I can start to tell that's starting to drop off."

Of his three Olympic medals - two in the Coxless Four and one in the Coxless Pair - he finds it difficult to rank them, but his first in 1992 was probably the most special because "we didn't really know what it meant... you're just off on a tangent... So the first one was just a taste of what it was all about, that's why we kept on going."