Kiwi triathlete Kris Gemmell is set to retire from the sport later this year.
The 35-year-old says he was preparing to call time on his career after the ITU World Championship grand final in Auckland in October.
"I'll be most likely be done with the Olympic distance after Auckland. It'll be a nice way to finish it," he said.
A fixture on the international triathlon circuit circuit since 1998, Gemmell, who won the ITU round in Auckland last November, is already eyeing up his life post-competition, expressing his interest in guiding the future of the sport as part of the high performance team.
"I feel like I'm a valuable member of that team considering that I've been involved since the programme started in 1996 when John Hellemans started a triathlon academy down in Christchurch."
He said he had seen the support offered to athletes grow over the years and saud he had strong views on what was needed to allow athletes perform at their best.
His preparation for Tuesday's Olympic triathlon has included high altitude training in Boulder, Colorado and at Font-Romeu, France, and he has been spending his nights in an oxygen tent since arriving at the team's training base in Oxford.
He usually only leaves his high altitude base 48 hours before competition but Olympic duties meant he was forced to arrive at sea level earlier than usual, forcing him into the tent.
"In a perfect world I wouldn't have come down until tonight but because of race briefing and other stuff we had to figure out a way that deal with it," the said.
After narrowly missing out on being selected for Athens and a cut foot days out from the Beijing Olympics ruining his chances when in teh best form of his life, Gemmell wants to sign off with a quality performance.
"i just need a little bit of luck," he said.