PRIDE gets a bad reputation in sport. Not least because you are always supposed to have a fall. But for me, for once I can be allowed to wallow. Not in a public, in-your-face kind of way, but I have been asked a lot today how I feel. The easiest one-word answer is proud.

Proud of what I and the crews I have been in achieved. A dominant period with Steve Redgrave in the coxless pair spanning two Olympic Games. Then another epoch with the Sydney four battling against time, the opposition and sometimes each other to get the best out of ourselves. That campaign finished with Steve’s fifth gold medal, my third.

After that, lots of people said: “Why carry on? How could it get any better or more exciting?” But, of course, it did. All the tumult of 2004 culminating in an epic race between two almost perfectly matched boats at the biggest event of all. I knew going into that race that it was make or break. Win and become a legend, lose and we could forget it — or, more to the point, never forget it.

We rowed next to the Canadians for nearly five minutes before trying to break them. A planned early sprint for the line that we knew would bring the race to an early finish — a killer blow. But they absorbed it like an old-fashioned punchbag and came back. With ten strokes to go, we all found a little more. Steve Williams says he was angry; angry that we had got ahead and then not won by a margin. Ed Coode was growling behind me, both to encourage me and to get everything from himself.

James Cracknell, like me, was in a quiet, dark place. It’s not pleasant there, let me tell you, but the ability to get there and still perform is one of the attributes of winning.

That we planned and executed such a desperate and destructive race plan is one of the reasons for the pride. It takes sporting courage for us to have done that. We knew if we got it wrong we stood no chance of winning. But as it turned out, it was the reason we won. Such brinkmanship leaves scars. Not painful ones but only a few know what that feels like. It is one of the reasons that it feels natural to retire.

There is a natural break in the rowing cycle after the Olympics anyway. It’s when everyone takes stock and recovers. It is a good time to form a boat keen on four years of work to get to the top again. British rowing will do it, you watch. Men like Alex Partridge and Andrew Hodge, both names that hardly register now, will be the new heroes. I’ll look out of the beer tent or down from dusty sepia prints and be a target, but I am happiest now as spectator rather than gladiator.

Sure, there is a massive challenge over what to do now. I love writing; columns such as this are always a possibility. But what else? Can’t turn hack just yet. The answer is variety. I want to do more with London 2012 (the Olympic bid) and sports politics in general. I also want to launch a Corporate Rowing Challenge. All good, exciting projects. For a year or so I have a wonderful window to do everything and nothing almost simultaneously. But it won’t last — I don’t want it to. I’m at my best driven, focused . . . oh and taking pride in what I do.