Washington, Jan 31 (IANS): Olympic swimming champion Rebecca Soni of the US has retired at the age of 26 and now plans to live a new lifestyle.
"I know I've conquered my goals in the pool and now it's time to conquer something else," she said Thursday, reported Xinhua.
The breaststroke specialist won the 200 metres gold at the last two Olympics while taking back-to-back silvers in the 100m breast. She also was part of medley relay teams that won gold in Beijing and the silver in London.
Rebecca set a world record of two minutes, 19.59 seconds in 200m breast at London but the mark was broken at last year's Barcelona Worlds by Rikke Pedersen of Denmark.
"Achieving my dream of going below two minutes and 20 seconds in the 200m breaststroke really put the storybook ending on my career," said Rebecca, who will launch a new company with another swimmer Ariana Kukors.