Christine Sinclair announces Canada retirement with international goals record
Olympic gold medallist Sinclair, the all-time leading scorer in international football, will continue to play club football, but will bow out later this year, and won't be at Paris 2024
Football
Christine Sinclair has annonuced that she will retire from international football later this year, bringing the curtain down on an historic career for the Canadian women's team.
She led her nation to Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 in 2021, and will bow out as the leading goalscorer in internationals, having netted an impressive 190 goals in 327 appearances for her national side ahead of a pair of send-off games in November/December 2023.
In comparison, the men's record holder Cristiano Ronaldo currently has 127 goals for Portugal.
The 40-year-old Sinclair helped the Canadian team book their spot at Paris 2024, but said in announcing her retirement that she had always known she would hang up her boots before the next Olympics.
"After Tokyo, deep down inside, I knew I didn't want to play in Paris," she told Reuters.
"Honestly, you can't play forever... And this seems like a good time to be done."
Sinclair was also part of the Canada side who played at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, her sixth World Cup tournament.
She still plans to play for the Portland Thorns in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in North America next season.