Olympic champion swimmer Maggie Mac Neil 'at peace' with retirement decision after 'great run'

Sitting beside her childhood backyard pool in London, Ont., the same pool where she learned how to swim and trained in to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, Maggie Mac Neil starts reflecting on her prolific athletic career.

Her seemingly out-of-nowhere retirement to some less than a week ago at the age of 24 was always something Mac Neil knew was coming, and was planned.

There's no wondering what might have been, no regrets and certainly no second-guessing her decision.

"I'm so at peace with my decision and I think it was just the right time for me," Mac Neil told CBC Sports.

"I've only been on the national team for four or five years and it's been a great, short run. And I think that's the beauty of it, is that I came to do what I wanted to do and more than I ever thought I would do. I'm ready to move on and begin this next chapter, whatever that might be."

Mac Neil says she had been thinking about her retirement for a few weeks before taking to social media and making it official.

WATCH | Mac Neil discusses retirement decision with CBC Sports' Devin Heroux:

And yet for as practical, reasoned and pragmatic as she is about most things in her life, the action of setting into motion her retirement was still a little unnerving for the Olympic champion.

"I've had the message and the post in my drafts for a couple of weeks and as I was ready to hit the post, my heart rate was probably the same as it was before I walked out at the Olympics final," Mac Neil said.

"It definitely does make it feel real having everyone else know."

There's no deeper explanation as to why Mac Neil retired at this point in her career. She's won — a lot — all while working tirelessly on her academic aspirations in the background. She completed her Masters degree while competing and is preparing for Law School.

There was always an expiration date on her swimming.

Mac Neil says she's had a healthy relationship with what swimming meant to her, and that despite an immense amount of success in the pool it was never going to define her.

"Ever since I started swimming, it was always the extra curricular. And I knew that swimming was always second to school. Because there's life after sport and I'm grateful that I was taught that lesson, and that I've always been driven enough educationally that I wanted to continue that while I've been competing," Mac Neil said.