Rebecca Adlington who won two golds in Beijing and two bronze medals in London is retiring!

It's a sad day when an Olympian lays down their goggles and says, "I don't want to do this anymore." It is even sadder when they have to justify and explain to the public their reasons and then beg them to accept their decision and let them go.

It takes 7-years to master something but if you are a swimmer you have probably put in 14-years-or-so to become that "black belt" master and even if you make it to the Olympics there is a 98% chance that all that time spent in the pool will have produced a negative cash return.

Speaking of 7-years, Early October will be my seventh year with SCAQ.

From Reuters:

"Rio is out of reach. I'll be 27 then and swimming, especially for distance swimmers, is a young person's game," said Adlington, who finished third behind 15-year-old American Katie Ledecky in the 800 metres freestyle at the London Games.

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She also had this parting criticism for the British performance panel who is looking into why British Swimming semi-flopped at the London games this year. She wants British athletes on the panel but  they actually hired athletes from different countries.

One of the "performance geeks" on the inquiry is Michael Phelps. I find this odd because he is not a British swimmer. He has no experience leading nor managing an Olympic team. He has never scouted for a college or university nor has he even coached.

The trouble with British swimming is something he would have no experience nor any sense of history as to how British swimmers are created there. ..."

From the Daily Mail:

Adlington said: 'You can never get enough help or gain enough knowledge after any sporting event, but I wish they'd asked me or my coach, Bill Furniss, because we're the ones who really know what's going on poolside.  

'Michael Scott is in Australia a lot and the others don't know what's going on here. Britain is very different from America or Australia or China. We don't have the collegiate system, for starters. We have to make do with the tools at our disposal.' ..." 

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