Three-time Paralympic champion Lauren Rowles has called time on her rowing career. The 27-year-old from Bromsgrove announced her retirement from international rowing and has decided to return to wheelchair racing.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last few years, it’s just how to be satisfied with what you’ve done,” Rowles told Telegraph Sport. “I’m really glad I’ve got to that place, because, gosh, when I was back in my early twenties, I was never satisfied.”

In Paris last year, Rowles, who has been described as the greatest Paralympic rower of all time, became the first person to win three consecutive Paralympic gold medals, having successfully defended her London and Tokyo titles in the PR2 Mix2x.

“I felt like it was my time to hang up my oars and call it a day,” said Rowles on BBC Radio Hereford and Worcester. “As athletes we always strive for that next thing, but there was something telling me that nothing was ever going to be better than this.”

LA 2028 remains on Rowles’s radar. In a “full circle moment” Rowles has returned to the sport she excelled at as a junior. At just 16-years-old Rowles represented England in the T54 1500m at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. A decade on she made her London Marathon debut in April this year.

“I didn’t place anywhere decently,” Rowles told Telegraph Sport. “I was back of the field and that humbling experience was what fuelled a lot of it. It was like staring at the top of the mountain thinking: ‘How do I get there now?’”

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Her next marathons are scheduled this autumn, in Berlin and Shanghai, but looking ahead she also hasn’t ruled out competing on the track.

“This is what’s really exciting about this new chapter,” said Rowles. “I almost get to cook up the recipe a little bit.”

Read more on Lauren Rowles and her sporting journey.