British National Team swimmer Katherine Wyld announced her retirement today via her Twitter account. After battling through three years of hip pain, her surgeon told her that the only chance at healing was to give up swimming.
“After 3 years of trying to sort my hip injury I’ve been told by my surgeon that I need to retire from swimming to give it a chance to heal,” the Tweet said. She would go on to say that she was “incredibly sad about [her] swimming career being over in this way, especially given all the incredible opportunities to come in 2012” but that she “will be keeping [her] fingers crossed for all [her] amazing friends and teammates to do some amazing things this year”.
Wild was a member of both the 2007 and 2009 World Championship squads as a sprint freestyler, including the 2009 World Championship 400 free relay that placed 7th overall. She hasn’t swum a competitive race since British Nationals in April of 2010 while battling her injury.
The outpouring of love for her from all corners of the British swimming community was defeaning, owing to her popularity within the sport.