STEPHANIE Cullen has revealed that her Olympic dreams are over after the Bury-born rower decided not to try out for the British squad.

The former Bury Grammar School pupil won gold at the World Rowing Championships in Slovenia last year as part of the victorious lightweight women’s quadruple scull team.

However, that event is not recognised by the Olympic committee, meaning Cullen would have had to break into the double skulls team to make the London Olympics squad.

At the age of 31, the Oxford undergraduate decided it was time to concentrate on her career, and has now officially announced her retirement from the sport.

“It was always going to be difficult to break into the double skulls team,” she said.

“The girls in that team have been together for three years, so it would probably have been too much of an ask to change that.

“It got to the point where I started to think about my future. At 31, I was older than the rest of the team and had to consider whether or not it was worth sacrificing my career for the sport.

“My theory was that if I won gold in the summer, then I could retire on a high, but I have no regrets. I love rowing and I always will do, but you’ve got to think things through logically and I had to do what was best for me.”

Cullen had been part of the Great Britain lightweight women’s quadruple scull team for the last three years, winning silver at the 2009 World Championships, before going one better last summer.

“To win gold was absolutely amazing,” she said. “We went there thinking that we would have a decent chance, but in the end we were so far ahead of the other competitors that we knew we’d won before we had even crossed the finishing line. It was a feeling that I’ll never forget.”

After hanging up her oar, Cullen now works full-time as a senior client director at Dunnhumby, a data analysis company in Ealing, London, and harbours dreams of one day emigrating to Australia.