ABC journalist Tracey Holmes has announced that she will be leaving the public broadcaster at the end of next month.
“Paris 2024 beckons. It will be my 14th Olympic Games as a journalist/reporter/broadcaster. This coming Olympics though, it will not be for the ABC since I have resigned and will finish on November 30,” Holmes wrote on social media over the weekend.
“Thanks to colleagues, listeners, viewers, readers, critics and most importantly, those who always gave their time to both celebrate sports role in society and discuss the ways of turning the negatives into the positives.”
Holmes indicated that there would still be a lot to come from her in the future, finishing off by saying that “to channel a former governor of California in his former life as The Terminator, ‘I’ll be back’, that’s a promise.”
The first public acknowledgement of the news came via socials, as Holmes didn’t even share the news with the listeners to her ABC podcast The Ticket – with the latest episode dropping just hours before her social media post.
There is no indication yet whether or not the weekly sports podcast will continue with or without her.
Holmes joined the ABC in 1989, working as a broadcast trainee. She eventually became the host of Grandstand, making her Australia’s first female host of a national sports program.
Earlier in 2023, she was awarded the Australian Sports Commission’s Lifetime Achievement Award, with the peak body calling her one of the most “influential sports broadcasters” in the country.
Holmes’ resignation comes five months after her partner, Stan Grant, announced that he would be stepping down as host of the ABC’s Q+A, citing racial abuse that he had been on the receiving end of after the coronation of King Charles III. He later announced that the decision was permanent, leaving journalism for a new role as the inaugural Director of the Constructive Institute Asia Pacific in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University.