Geoff Heugill in 2010. Picture: Kate Leith
Australian swimming champion butterflier Geoff Huegill this afternoon has announced that he would retire for a second - and final - time to concentrate on his career out of the pool.
Dual-Olympian Huegill had left his swimming career open-ended after failing to make the London Olympic Games squad at the national trials in March this year. But the 33-year-old has within the past couple of weeks completed the necessary paperwork to signal that his time in competitive swimming was finished.
Huegill made a well-publicised comeback to the pool after retiring following the 2004 Athens Olympics, when he dropped more than 40 kilograms to win two gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
He said he was happy with everything that he had achieved in the pool and that he had made amends for some "poor decisions" made during the earlier part of his career.
However, while realising he could no longer commit to the training needed with his work and sponsorship commitments, he said retirement was still a difficult decision to make.
"It was tough. It was really tough," said Huegill, who wants to remain in a mentoring role with Australian team. "As much as I would love to keeep swimming and going away and racing at (international meets), sooner or later I really had to start cementing the next phase of my career, and that was always the plan."
"When I got back into the sport (it was about) fundamentally taking care of my health and through taking care of my health and I had an opprotunity to represent my country again, which was the most important thing, but on top of that I had the opportunity to really rebuild my brand again as an individual."
"(But) knowing that I wasn't going to be able to put six hours a day into the sport, it would be quite selfish of me to that opportunity away from a young up-and-comer to get that experience and hopefully really come out of their shell."
smh.com.au
