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Redgrave quits after landmark gold medal
LONDON, Sept 24 (AFP) - Britain's serial Olympic gold medallist Steven Redgrave insisted Sunday he will quit and not try to add a sixth title to his record-breaking collection. Britain's greatest Olympian completed a historic fifth successive Games triumph when he led the coxless four - also comprising Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster and James Cracknell - to rowing glory in Sydney on Saturday. He is the only endurance athlete to win golds in five consecutive Games in a gilt run that began in Los Angeles in 1984. Only Hungarian Alader Gerevich, in the less physically demanding sport of fencing, has surpassed his achievement with six golds between 1932 and 1960. Redgrave was initially coy about whether he would go on to Athens in 2004 to have a crack at making it six of the best. But he told British tabloid the News of the World: "That's it for me. It's over. This was my defining moment. "I don't even think I'll go out in a boat any more. It's time to find something else to do." That was a fairly tame retirement speech compared to the one he made at Atlanta after his fourth gold medal in 1996. "Anyone who sees me go anywhere near a boat again, ever, you've got my permission to shoot me," Redgrave said after that success in the coxless pairs alongside Pinsent. He subsequently reconsidered that decision but he will be 42 when Athens stages the Games in 2004 and is unlikely to back down this time around.
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