Israeli swimmer Guy Barnea has announced his retirement from professional swimming. The 30-year old represented Israel at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and won 3 European Championship medals in his career in the 50 back. He took bronze at the 2010 and 2012 long course editions and silver at the 2012 editions in short course.
Barnea is also a 2-time World University Games medalist in the same event (silver in 2011, bronze in 2009). He swam collegiately at Cal, where he was a member of 3 NCAA Championship-winning relays in 2010: the 200 free relay (anchor), the 200 medley relay (backstroke), and the 400 medley relay (backstroke). He still holds the Israel National Record in the 50 back in short course meters with a 23.27 done at the 2015 European Championships.
Barena, who graduated from Cal with a degree in Business Administration, lists his heroes as Austrian swimmer Markus Rogan and British entrepreneur Richard Branson. It’s no surprise, then, that in his post-swimming career, has has launched a clothing line called “Weekends At,” which designs men’s underwear.
Barnea’s most recent success came in August of 2016, where he won the 100 back at the Eindhoven Swim Cup in 55.19; and at the 2017 Scottish National Championships, where he won the same even tin 54.49 – just two-tenths of a second short of his lifetime best. He also swam for Team Israel in a special U.S. vs. Israel 200 medley relay at the 2017 Maccabiah Games. There, he led off an all-Olympian Israeli team that lost to a relay that lost to U.S. Olympians Lenny Krayzelburg, Jason Lezak, and Anthony Ervin in one of the grand spectacles of the meet.
His last meet was the 2017 Israeli Summer Championships where he took bronze medals in the 50 fly and 50 back individually.