Kim Brennan joins Sport Australia Hall of Fame

"I was hoping they weren't going to call me back and say 'sorry, whoops, that was a mistake'," the Olympic Games rowing gold medallist laughed.

But this is no mistake. Brennan is set to join the Sport Australia Hall of Fame as an athlete member for her contribution to rowing throughout a glittering career.

Even if it does feel like a lifetime since Brennan's face was plastered across postage stamps all over the country after a gold medal win in Rio gave her the full complement of Olympic medals.

"You know what's strange? It's seven years since I rowed, and I find it hard to believe once upon a time I did eight hours of training and I was capable of racing at an elite level," Brennan said.

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"I feel like the challenge of getting out and running around the block is sometimes too much in the daily life of raising kids and working.

"It's almost like looking at another person, rather than going 'this is something that I did', it's like going 'this is someone with the same name as me, oh wait, that was me'."

Brennan won the full complement of Olympic medals, claiming silver and bronze medals in the women's double sculls and the single sculls in London before winning gold in the single sculls at the Rio Games.

The success in 2016 led Australia Post to produce stamps with Brennan's headshot. Some feat for a woman who only turned to rowing when a leg injury ruined her hurdling career.

It came after Brennan - who carried the flag at the closing ceremony in Rio, having been one of Australia's shining lights in an disappointing Olympic campaign - won world championships in 2013 and 2015.

The Olympic champion would announce her retirement in November 2018 following the arrival of her first child, Jude, but rowing's highest accolade was still to come.

Brennan won the highest individual prize in world rowing a year after retiring, claiming the Thomas Keller Medal for her contribution to the sport.

With a place among Australian sport's elite now awaiting her, the mother of two still can't quite believe she achieved it all.

"I sit on the board of the Australian Sports Foundation, the body tasked with raising philanthropic money into sport, which I am very passionate about and I love that," Brennan said.

"That's pretty much the extent of my involvement in sport now, other than as a spectator and as a mum taking kids to Auskick."

Brennan is among a star-studded cast in this year's batch of inductees; Tim Cahill is the only Socceroo to play at four FIFA World Cups; Johnathan Thurston is one of rugby league's greatest players; Kurt Fearnley won three Paralympic gold medals; Lydia Lassila is an aerial skiing Olympic champion; Nova Peris is the first Indigenous Australian to win an Olympic gold medal as a Hockeyroo and the only person to make back-to-back Summer Olympic Games finals in two different sports; and renowned rowing coach Tim McLaren OAM.

"It's very exciting. Seeing some of the other inductees, it's an amazing group to be a part of," Brennan said.

"Lydia, I sat on the athletes commission with her for many years and I watched Kurt Fearnley's career with absolute interest, and everything he has done inside and outside of sport is phenomenal.

"It's hugely exciting and humbling."

The inductees will be honoured at a Sport Australia Hall of Fame event at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art on October 16.

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