Missy Franklin "Swimming Champion" announced her retirement on Wednesday at the age of 23, recount with intense pain from her shoulder injuries that have hung her tough for nearly three years.
Franklin won the 100 and 200 meters backstroke events at the 2012 London Olympics when she was 17-year-old, the latter in a world-record time that still stands more than six years later.
She also made her final in two other individual events in London and was also a part of two vanquishing U.S. relay teams.
Franklin picked up six gold medals at the 2013 Barcelona World Championships but never augmented her personal best times from London.
She struggled a lot to imitate herself in the competition after experiencing first bad shoulder pain in 2017.
She explained her reasons for retiring in an article.
"I've been in too much pain, for too long, to go through another surgery with longer recovery time and no guarantee it would even help," she wrote.
"It took me a long time to say the words, 'I am retiring.' A long, long time. But now I'm ready."
This was perhaps her hardest letter she worded "Today I'm announcing my retirement from the competitive swimming".
