Missy Franklin Pens Emotional Swimming Retirement Letter

Five-time Olympic gold medallist Missy Franklin has announced her retirement from competitive swimming at the age of 23.

Franklin was one of the sensations of London 2012 when she burst on to the international scene and won four golds as a 17-year-old amateur.

She followed that incredible breakout performance with another gold at Rio 2016 four years later, but has been plagued by shoulder injuries and has also been very open about struggles with her mental health.

Now, Franklin has decided to call time on a career that also saw her win 11 world championship gold medals between 2011 and 2015.

"I'm ready to not be in pain every day," she wrote in an emotional retirement letter to ESPN, which revealed the full extent of the pain she has been suffering in a bid to make another Olympic appearance at Tokyo 2020.

"I've been very open about what I went through as I prepared for the Olympics in 2016 and talked openly about the struggles I endured, which included shoulder pain whenever I tried to train or compete, depression, anxiety and insomnia," she wrote.

"It was also the year when I began to fully accept the fact that something was wrong with my body and it wasn't working the way it was supposed to work.

"At the Mesa Pro Series event in April 2016, I had to be pulled from the meet due to intense shoulder pain from an injury suffered in warm-up. I had never experienced that kind of pain before and I began to completely unravel.

"The Olympic Games were just four months away and many expected it to be the greatest moment of my athletic career. After the success I saw at my first Olympics in London, the expectations for my second Olympic appearance only felt greater.

"I trained through it all - both the physical and emotional pain - and did everything I possibly could have to keep my head held high. Looking back, surviving through those eight days in Rio was the greatest accomplishment of my career."

Franklin had surgery on both shoulders following the Rio Olympics, and took the following summer off to aid her recovery.

She returned to competitive action in the Sette Colli Trophy this summer, but soon realised her shoulders had not healed.

"My shoulder pain became the worst I had ever experienced," she added. "Every moment I wasn't training was spent recovering with ice and rest, as I tried to heal and prepare myself for the next practice - but nothing was working.

"I went through three different rounds of cortisone shots, one of which was before Nationals this past summer, and also had an ultrasound bicep tendon injection at the end of September.

"Technically speaking, my medical diagnosis is severe chronic tendonitis of both the rotator cuff and the bicep tendon. After the failure of my last round of shots, I had only one other option: another surgery, and even that was a long shot."

After a lot of soul-searching, Franklin decided against yet more surgery.

"I've been in too much pain, for too long, to go through another surgery with a longer recovery time and no guarantee it would even help."

Franklin says she has no plans to leave swimming completely, and still wants the sport to play a big part in her life by inspiring other swimmers "to be their best, both in and out of the pool".

You can click here to read the full version of Missy Franklin's retirement letter.