BRISBANE, Australian, April 8. DEMONSTRATING the class with which she’s typically carried herself within the sport of swimming, three-time Olympic gold medalist Stephanie Rice waited for the completion of the Australian National Championships before making her retirement public with an emotional YouTube video.
Rice has always been at the forefront of social media, and announcing her retirement video a professionally-produced video definitely ties a bow on a stellar career in the sport.
Rice had a transcendent 2008 Olympics in Beijing where she won a trio of Olympic gold medals with an IM sweep of the 200 and 400 individual events as well as a gold in the 800 free relay. That performance earned her Swimming World’s World Swimmer of the Year honor in 2008.
Since standing at the top of the world as one of the best swimmers of all time in Australia, Rice then began to his some rough patches. She was unable to repeat her efforts at the 2009 World Championships, taking silver in the 200 IM and bronze in the 400 IM. She then took 400 IM bronze again at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, but has had to battle multiple injuries throughout the waning parts of her career that included competing at the 2012 London Olympics without earning a medal.
She had initially considered retiring immediately after London, but wanted to make sure she was certain about her retirement and without a desire for any talk of a comeback later in life.