2-time Olympic champ Rosie MacLennan retiring from competition, aims to stay a voice for athletes

Rosie Maclennan shows up at the CBC Sports offices for our interview unaccompanied and without fanfare.

"I'm a little bit early," she says in a text message. "Don't rush though, I'm happy to do a little reading until you're ready for me."

The two-time Olympic trampoline champion has arrived to reflect on her career and talk about why she's decided that now is the time to retire from competitive sport. 

MacLennan, 34, has also just returned from the world championships in Sofia, Bulgaria where she is the athlete representative on the International Gymnastics Federation [FIG]. From here, she'll head back to Stanford University in California in order to complete her studies toward an MBA.

There's a lot to consider when you try to measure up everything this diminutive, yet powerful, woman has done and continues to do. 

Rosie, as most affectionately refer to her, has been flying through the stratosphere and, at times, under the radar on the Canadian sporting landscape for a long time. 

WATCH | Scott Russell sits down with Rosie Maclennan:

She's that rare athlete who has competed at four Olympic Games. MacLennan also carried the Canadian flag at the opening ceremony of Rio 2016, and successfully defended the gold medal she won in London four years earlier. 

That made her the first and only Canadian at a Summer Games to repeat as Olympic champion in an individual event.  Beyond that she's won 18 major international titles, been the individual trampoline world champion twice, and the Pan American Games gold medallist on two occasions, including at home in Toronto in 2015.

"I think that is always going to go down in history as one of my favourite memories," she said. "It's because I finally got to perform in front of a home crowd