Larisa Iordache announces retirement

After a storied career, Romanian artistic gymnast Larisa Iordache announced Thursday (16 December) that she is moving on from the sport.

After news reports surfaced late Wednesday, Iordache took to her Instagram page a day later to confirm the news.

"You fall, but you get up! Today, she is no one, but tomorrow, she is the world champion. Everything is a choice, a choice to be the best for you and in your soul," Iordache wrote in the post. "That's what I learned in the 20 years I spent in the gym. Today, I end this beautiful chapter of my life. I feel at peace and satisfied with the choice I made! It's time for a normal life and a little quieter."

A week ago, Iordache posted about what would be the seventh surgery related to her gymnastics career. An ankle injury had limited her participation at the Tokyo 2020 Games held in the summer of 2021 to just balance beam. She later had to withdraw from the medal round.

Her appearance in Tokyo came after a lengthy stretch of injuries kept her out of the sport for nearly three years.

“To be honest, it was very hard because it was very long, but at the same time I could not stay too far away from gymnastics,” Iordache told Olympics.com earlier this year of her long road back to competition. “I still went to the gym. I had attempts that were not quite successful, but it seems that last year was a more positive experience for me.”

Iordache leaves the sport with one Olympic medal in two appearances, having helped the Romanian team to bronze at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. She owns two silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships and 16 medals, including seven golds, from the Europeans.

She also has the distinction of finishing the closest to American Simone Biles in a world or Olympic all-around final, having come just .466 shy of Biles at the 2014 Worlds. The next closest margin was nearly double (.884 by Kyla Ross in 2013).