The Great Britain rowing team preparing for the Beijing Olympics has been described as operating under a “draconian” system in which unhappy athletes are treated like schoolchildren and are unable to fulfil their potential.

The stinging criticism is surprising not only because GB Rowing has accounted for six gold medals in the past four Olympics and is upheld as a model of success, but also because it comes from Rebecca Romero, who was a rowing silver medal-winner at the Athens Games in 2004.

Romero won her medal in the women's quadruple sculls and the next year she became a world champion. However, her frustrations with the sport led her to retirement aged only 25.

Since then, she has had a remarkable revival as a track cyclist. She took gold in the individual pursuit at the World Championships in Manchester in March, making her a strong medal contender for Beijing, yet the comparison with cycling appears to have reinforced her views on the shortcomings of the set-up she left behind.

“I wasn't happy with the system and I wasn't happy with the way the athletes were treated within it or my ability to progress as an athlete,” she said. “I wasn't in an environment where I felt I could develop and try and get that last 1 or 2 per cent.

“You should be able to line up at the Olympics or a World Championship final, look at your competitors and think, 'I have done absolutely everything I can to succeed here.' And if you can't answer yes, what is the point in lining up in the first place? What's the point of dedicating your whole life to something that you know you're not doing properly?”

Romero's criticism is directed at a “very draconian environment”, where all athletes are like “robots”, never diverting from the same training programme. “Rowing was like being at school, with the teachers telling you what to do,” she said. “You've always got to report to registration at the exact time every morning. There are rules, you're being dictated to and told what to do. In cycling, if you fail because you haven't worked hard, well that's your loss. In rowing, you almost had to be beaten with a stick because they didn't trust you.

“It was always like, 'Just get through this month.' Then it's, 'Get through this week, get through this day, get through this session.' It was a case of being constantly tired in a way that you shouldn't be, mentally and physically fatigued.”

Romero said that she is not alone in having this sentiment. “Most people in rowing knew how I felt,” she said. “I probably didn't hide my hatred towards it the way other athletes did. I know that a lot of them felt the way towards the sport that I do, but I'm just not prepared to work in that kind of environment. When I left, I got comments like, 'Congratulations for getting out of it, I wish I could do the same thing.'

“After I became world champion, I made the decision that the medals didn't make up for it. Someone said to me after Athens that winning the silver should make up for the four years' hard work. You expect your initial response to be, 'Yes, absolutely.' But mine was, 'No, it doesn't.' It's five minutes on the podium. Even if I was told I was going to win an Olympic gold medal, to me the four years it required wasn't a good trade-off.”

David Tanner, the performance director of GB Rowing, said in response: “I'm very relaxed about how Rebecca feels. She was very well supported in rowing, especially during her extensive injury period. In rowing, we are a crew sport and people need to train together to be able to perform; that is essential to rowing and actually what captivates people. Clearly her views do not reflect how most of us feel about rowing, otherwise we wouldn't all be in the sport. But I wish her the very best in Beijing in what I see as a united British Olympic team.”