I really believe that and in the last few days I've started to think about the near-misses and just how quick I was walking a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately there was no choice but to retire.

If at all possible I would have liked to go on, but I've had a nerve problem for quite a while. It's basically the same problem I had in the run up to the 2004 Athens Olympics, and while it settled and improved quite a bit over the last couple of years, it physically won't hold up to the training I have to do to get back where I was. I could have carried on at a lower level, but I really didn't see the point having got so close to the top.

My body is obviously telling me to stop, but at least I'm left with those memories.

I suppose my good years weren't that many but I like to think they were prosperous.

My first major championship was the Europeans in 1998 and I went to the World Championships in 1999. At that stage it was just about experiencing such days but it was after that things picked up. I did very well then in Sydney, which was my major breakthrough. I was 10th there in the 20k walk and to say it was fantastic is an understatement. My first Olympics at 24, everything is new and then to surprise myself and a lot of people with the result, it's very hard to describe. I'd got a lot of support before I went out because I was the first Kerry woman to go to an Olympics, and I like to think I did a lot of people proud. After that things really took off. In 2002 I was fourth in the Europeans and then set the world record in Santry for the 5,000m.

But winning a world silver medal in Paris in 2003 topped it off. It was a huge year. I had been doing very well all along.

I'd won two Grand Prix races, my training was coming together and I was expecting a result. But having hopes and fulfilling them are very different things and can add a lot of pressure. I just remember being very focused on splits and keeping in control.

I didn't allow myself to think I was going to win a medal until I came into the stadium.

The it dawned, I was going to the podium.

It wasn't all glamorous mind you, but walking never is. I remember training down with one of the other walkers, Audrey Heffernan, in Cork one morning. There was a guy there with his son and daughter and he was all into it, wondering what we were going to do that day and he was big into the splits and distances and was asking about everything. But when we started he was disgusted.

"Jesus, they're walkers." You could see him thinking it. It is an unusual sport, granted, but once people get over that they realise the effort put in.

Sadly after 2004 though, the effort I put in amounted to little and it was downhill from there. But what's even more sad is how athletics is overlooked. It's impossible to compete with other sports like GAA and soccer and rugby but even so. All of the above is in the recent past, yet I wonder how many people remember. I had to win a medal to make a front page and there were still some papers that ignored it. People would generally know who you are but there will be people reading this who wonder who I am, what I've done and it leaves me thinking in athletics in Ireland, what is it you have to do to be a household name?

Since it came out that I've retired people didn't realise all I had achieved over the four years I was achieving. Really, I thought I might have got more recognition. But you just have to take that, it's just life. You can't compete against other sports. But everyone in athletics knew the story and that makes up a little for it.

The future? Well I'm going to take a break for a while and then maybe get in personal training at a local level and build up from there. Eventually I might go back into athletics in some role, but I just want to get away from it for a while. When it comes to the stage where you are happy to retire I guess it's different.

But that's not me. I would have liked to keep going but some things are out of my control.

Gillian O'Sullivan is a former World Championship silver medalist