2-time Olympic champ Rosie MacLennan may have retired, but she remains an important ally for athletes

Rosie Maclennan shows up at the CBC Sports offices for our interview unaccompanied and without fanfare.

"I'm a little bit early," she says in a text message. "Don't rush though, I'm happy to do a little reading until you're ready for me."

The two-time Olympic trampoline champion has arrived to reflect on her career and talk about why she's decided that now is the time to retire from competitive sport. 

MacLennan, 34, has also just returned from the world championships in Sofia, Bulgaria where she is the athlete representative on the International Gymnastics Federation [FIG]. From here, she'll head back to Stanford University in California in order to complete her studies toward an MBA.

There's a lot to consider when you try to measure up everything this diminutive, yet powerful, woman has done and continues to do. 

Rosie, as most affectionately refer to her, has been flying through the stratosphere and, at times, under the radar on the Canadian sporting landscape for a long time. 

WATCH | Scott Russell sits down with Rosie Maclennan:

She's that rare athlete who has competed at four Olympic Games. MacLennan also carried the Canadian flag at the opening ceremony of Rio 2016, and successfully defended the gold medal she won in London four years earlier. 

That made her the first and only Canadian at a Summer Games to repeat as Olympic champion in an individual event.  Beyond that she's won 18 major international titles, been the individual trampoline world champion twice, and the Pan American Games gold medallist on two occasions, including at home in Toronto in 2015.

"I think that is always going to go down in history as one of my favourite memories," she said. "It's because I finally got to perform in front of a home crowd and in front of people who never really had the opportunity of watching me compete. Also winning a medal and standing alongside my role model, [three-time Olympic medallist)] Karen Cockburn, was a dream come true." 

MacLennan's credentials as an athlete are unassailable. Her record in her sport is incomparable, certainly from a Canadian perspective.

"Of all the champions I have coached Rosie is perhaps the greatest," said Dave Ross, her longtime coach and mentor. "Rosie brought incredible determination with a positive outlook and a sunny personality. To her a setback was just another challenge that she would overcome."

And there have been multiple setbacks along the way. Concussion issues in the lead-up to Toronto 2015, broken ankles and torn tendons on the way to the Tokyo Olympics. But somehow, MacLennan managed to overcome everything to remain the constant contender throughout her exemplary career. 

"There is a phenomenal and admirable mental toughness in most top athletes that some call true grit," Ross said. "And in Rosie's case there was no dark side to the force. She wanted all her competitors to do their best, while doing the work and taking the risks to surpass them.