{"id":31277,"date":"2026-06-25T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/norfolk-olympic-shot-putter-sophie-mckinna-retires\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:25:09","slug":"norfolk-olympic-shot-putter-sophie-mckinna-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/norfolk-olympic-shot-putter-sophie-mckinna-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"Norfolk Olympic shot putter Sophie McKinna retires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">An Olympic shot putter is retiring from athletics and taking up a team sport.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sophie McKinna, 31, from Bradwell, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, has spent the last six months playing rugby and hopes to join a Premiership team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The nine-time national champion had previously considered retiring when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/athletics\/articles\/c87rzgjj640o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">a serious elbow injury<\/a> put her 2024 Paris Olympic dreams on hold.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have no regrets in my career at all. I have performed to the best of my ability and got the best out of my body I physically could have,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aged just four, McKinna already aspired to become an Olympian. She started throwing at 12.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While injuries were &#8220;part and parcel&#8221; of elite sport, she said years of hyper-extending her elbow at such force had resulted in wear and tear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She said having surgery on her elbow, then losing some support and backing when she returned to the shot put, had been &#8220;the downfall of my career&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c892dynd48jo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Olympic shot putter is retiring from athletics and taking up a team sport. Sophie McKinna, 31, from Bradwell, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, has spent the last six months playing rugby and hopes to join a Premiership team. The nine-time national champion had previously considered retiring when a serious elbow injury put her 2024 Paris [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31279,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31277\/revisions\/31279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}