{"id":361391,"date":"2024-01-20T22:58:52","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T23:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=361391"},"modified":"2024-01-21T01:02:50","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T01:02:50","slug":"why-horton-sat-on-quite-scary-retirement-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=361391","title":{"rendered":"Why Horton sat on 'quite scary' retirement decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian Olympic<\/a> gold medal-winning swimmer<\/a> Mack Horton<\/a> has announced his retirement from the sport, effective immediately.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old won gold in the 400m freestyle at Rio 2016, and bronze in the 4x200m freestyle relay in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

Horton said he still had the desire to swim in Paris, but "the hunger wasn't there".<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> The 'dangerous' teen stars flipping tennis on its head<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Why this Djokovic photo means so much to Medvedev<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n


READ MORE: \ufeff<\/strong>'Had a few': Brit's cheeky barb after upset win<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to Nine's Weekend Today <\/em>on Sunday morning, \ufeffHorton said he'd been sitting on the "quite scary" decision for a while before going public.<\/p>\n

\"Mack<\/p>\n

"It kind of feels like you're about to jump out of an aeroplane, because it's just an unknown," he said.<\/p>\n

"All I've known is 17 years of swimming \u2013 5am mornings, nine or 10 sessions a week."<\/p>\n

He said moving into the nine-to-five life brought with it some of its own unique challenges, but it would also give him the chance to enjoy some of the simpler things in life he had never been able to before.<\/p>\n

"I'm nervous about not being able to have a nap in the middle of the day. I'm not sure how that's going to go \u2013 it's going to be quite the adjustment," he said.<\/p>\n

"I've never been able to go to the footy and have a beer. So I cannot wait."<\/p>\n

\ufeff\ufeffHorton's 1:44.85 anchor leg in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 2019 World Championships was the fastest Australian leg of the meeting, and led the Dolphins to gold over Russia and the USA.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That was one of seven world championship medals, four pan-pacific medals, and eight Commonwealth Games medals \u2013 including four gold.<\/p>\n

Horton had a reputation for his integrity and values, and along with his Rio gold, is perhaps best known for his high-profile standoff with China's Sun Yang at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea.<\/p>\n

Yang had just won his fourth consecutive 400-metre world championship gold medal<\/a>. Horton placed second, taking silver in a reversal of their Olympic final in 2016 when the Australian won gold.<\/p>\n

\"Silver<\/p>\n

Yang had been dogged by doping scandals \u2013 Horton even labelled him a "drug cheat" in Rio \u2013 leading the Aussie to refuse to stand on the podium next to Yang, or even shake his hand.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Horton's stance \u2013 which unsurprisingly garnered huge notoriety in China \u2013 was vindicated when Yang was banned for eight years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for tampering with the doping control process.<\/p>\n

Although he won't be in Paris, Horton said he was looking forward to watching his former teammates compete.<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

\ufeff"To be honest, every other time I've been at a major competition, I've been there, head down, working and focused," he said.<\/p>\n

"So I'm looking forward to be able to just watch the Olympics or any other swim meet from afar and enjoy it for what it is. <\/p>\n

"The reality is when you are racing at those meets, you don't actually get to see that much \u2013 it's just the hotel room and the swimming pool."<\/p>\n

Swimming Australia interim chief executive Steve Newman said Horton was "a prodigious talent, an incredible professional and a remarkable leader".<\/p>\n

Horton recently married his high school sweetheart Ella, and will begin a new life with a Melbourne-based advertising agency this week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Horton said he was thankful to be able to bow out of the sport on his own terms.<\/p>\n

"\ufeffIt's special for me to be able to call it, because so many people are forced out due to injury or other reasons," he said.<\/p>\n

"Whenever I retired from swimming, I always wanted to leave swimming still loving it, and I still love it. <\/p>\n

"I still swim a couple of times a week, I just have no desire to stand behind the blocks and prove myself.<\/p>\n

"I'm exactly where I want to be."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Mack Horton has announced his retirement from the sport, effective immediately. The 27-year-old won gold in the 400m freestyle at […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361391"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=361391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361399,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361391\/revisions\/361399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/361393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=361391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=361391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=361391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}