Good swimming karma is being spread around the world today, as Japan’s Rikako Ikee returned a message of hope to Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.
It started at the 2019 FINA World Championships, when 100m butterfly gold medalist Maggie MacNeil of Canada, silver medalist Sjostrom and bronze medalist Emma McKeon of Australia paid a special tribute to Japanese butterfly queen Ikee.
While standing on the podium, the trio showed a sign of solidarity for Ikee, who was still in the hostopital at the time undergoing intensive treatments to battle leukemia. The women conveyed the message “Rikako, never give up, Ikee” with hearts on their hands in the touching moment of support.
Now that Sjostrom has broken her elbow and will undergo surgery early this week, Ikee returned the positivity vibes and message for a quick recovery, saying on her Instagram today,
“Never give up! Sarah!! She gave me the power.
It’s my turn to give it back to her.”
As we reported, Sjostrom slipped on the ice in her native Sweden, rendering the Olympic champion in a full arm cast and sling.
For Ikee’s part, the leukemia survivor was in the water racing this weekend, getting under the 25-second threshold in the women’s 50m free for the first time since her return (24.91). She took silver in the event at the Japan Open, making her first podium of her inspirational comeback.
courtesy of Rikako Ikee IG
It’s a small world after all 🙂 Spread Love!
Awesome to see them supporting each other! Love the mutual respect between the flyers.
I love this friendship. Total class acts both of them.
This is absolutely fabulous, it brought tears to my eyes!
Hope to see both Sarah and Rikako compete at the Tokyo Olympics!
Exactly!!! Emma is my favourite female swimmer & both of these lovely ladies swim in the same events as she does. I’m sure she, like me would be ecstatic to swim these both wonderful swimmers in the lanes of the final next to her.
Japan, Sweden, Canada and Australia – one swimmer from each always linked together in solidarity. Just wonderful,
Between the Jessica Long commercial last night and now this amazing story, I have so much hope and optimism. What a great way to start the week!
The Jessica long commercial was great, though I don’t quite see how it was an ad for a automanufacturer…
Yes, there is good in this world
This is what swimming is all about. This is so beautiful and pure and really shows the world the best of our sport.