The twice Olympic champion, who won 11 world titles and bore her nation's flag at Rio, mulled bowing out at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in her home state of Queensland but said the physical toll extracted by 22 years of competition had helped make up her mind.

Meares revealed she had taken six cortisone injections in her spine just to get to Rio where she struggled in the defense of her sprint title but took the keirin bronze.

"Having had to change tack for six months leading into it and to achieve the things I have, I feel satisfied and happy to step aside from the sport and try something new and different," the 33-year-old told local broadcaster Channel Nine.

"I have been able to achieve so many wonderful things, more than most. I am the most successful for women in my sport in the field."

A coal miner's daughter raised in a remote Queensland town, Meares spent much of her childhood in the back seat of her parents' car, driving some 250 km to reach the nearest velodrome for training.

She emerged as a 20-year-old sensation in 2004, storming to the 500 meters time trial gold in world record time at the Athens Games, months after winning the world title at her home championships in Melbourne.

Her reputation for toughness was forged four years later, however, when she broke her neck, dislocated her shoulder and tore ligaments in a sickening crash at a World Cup event seven months before the Beijing Olympics.