No regrets for retired Francis
Published:Sunday | June 5, 2022 | 12:12 AMDaniel Wheeler - Staff Reporter
DEFINING HER journey as special, former Jamaican gymnast and Olympian Danusia Francis says that she leaves the sport with no regrets and optimism about her future and that of the sport for Jamaica.
Francis, 28, called time on her career last Sunday, two months before the 2022 Commonwealth Games were scheduled to take place in Birmingham, England. Francis was recovering from a knee injury that limited her participation at the Tokyo Olympics last year, only doing the uneven bars.
While the Commonwealth Games was her goal this year, she said that with the longer-than-anticipated recovery time, she no longer saw the Games as a possibility. It was during her recovery that she contemplated her future and made her decision to call time on her career.
“I wanted to do the Commonwealth Games but when they did my knee surgery it ended up being more serious and, therefore, a longer recovery. As I was resting and recovering from surgery, I started thinking about the next goals in my life that I want to achieve and started working towards making them a reality,” Francis told The Sunday Gleaner.
“As I made progress I was getting more excited and motivated about these new goals than any potential gymnastics goals, which is how I knew retirement was the right option for me.”
The decision brought the curtain down on a decade-long career for the British-born athlete who finally achieved her Olympic dream after twice being denied. While representing Great Britain, she only got a spot as a reserve for the London 2012 Games. She qualified as a Jamaican for the Olympic test spot in 2016 but was not chosen to compete at the qualifying event.
In a 2017 interview with flogymnastics.com, she said she didn’t want to have any regrets about what might have been after returning to the sport from a lengthy hiatus. It is finally reaching that Olympic goal, she says, that made her decision to retire easier.
“It is not a regret because it is out of my control, but I am naturally a little disappointed not to be able to represent at the Commonwealth Games as an athlete. But I have achieved my biggest goal and I am very proud of the legacy I am leaving,” Francis said.
COMMITTED TO LOCAL GROWTH
It is a legacy that Francis says she looks to continue to make for Jamaican gymnastics in the future. While she has joined the British Gymnastics Board as a non-executive Athlete representative, she says that she is committed to sports local growth with coaching and injury recovery.
Her love letter to gymnastics in her retirement post on social media was full of appreciation of what the sport has given her and the lessons she has learnt, with the biggest being the never-ending pursuit of your dreams.
“I would define my journey as unique and wholehearted. I feel like I have given everything to this sport and in return been rewarded with memories to last a lifetime,” Francis said.
“I am most thankful for how gymnastics has shaped me as a person. It has taught me many valuable lessons. The biggest probably being, chase your dreams because you only get one life!”