In a way she is paying the price for competing in the team pursuit. It took a lot out of her but she is very proud to have achieved this with the team with Claudia (Pechstein).

Our lawyers are looking at it. We'll see if anything can be done.

Basically she was exhausted and had these nagging coughing problems. She belongs to this group of competitive athletes with asthma and in the oval over the last few weeks it just got a bit worse.

She said 'we can't have everything in life.

We're still preparing the papers but we will file an appeal with the Berlin court.