Olympic silver medal winner Barney Williams, a rowing crew veteran from Salt Spring Island, B.C., has retired from the sport.
Williams, 33. who came within .08 seconds of a gold chasing the British four at Athens in 2004, won the 2003 world championship in that same event, and twice (2005-2006) pulled for Oxford's winning boat in the classic Oxford-Cambridge boat race winner.
Williams, husband of women's national team cornerstone Buffy Alexander Williams, said in a Rowing Canada statement he wants to get into sports broadcasting.
"The first priority is spending some time with my son, Tavin, and supporting Buffy in her pursuit of another Olympic medal," he said.
"My family and Buffy's family have been so supportive over the past 10 years, and I am looking forward to the opportunity over the next few months to strengthen the relationships that have been largely maintained by telephone while I have been rowing."
Williams joined the National program in 1997 as part of the under-23 team, after picking up the sport as a high schooler in Upper Canada College under former national team star Phil Monckton. He would later train in the national program under Volker Nolte and Mike Spracklen Monckton has gone on to become Rowing Canada's vice-president of high performance.