Won too much, much too young?

Is this already the end of the road for the likeable Adlington?

Rebecca Adlington is only 23 years old. Yet she is contemplating retirement and referring to herself as 'old' after winning bronze medals in both the 400m and 800m freestyle at London 2012. The Mansfield-born swimmer stormed to national icon status back in Beijing 2008, when as a 19-year-old she claimed gold medals in both events, including smashing Janet Evans' 800m record which had stood since the year Adlington was born. Now, after failing to defend the titles, losing out to 22-year-old French competitor Camille Muffat in the 400m and the 15-year-old American Katie Ledecky in the 800m, Adlington is having a serious think about whether she is good enough to continue at the highest level, particularly bearing in mind that she will be aged 27 by the time Rio de Janeiro 2016 rolls around. 

Ledecky is one amongst a new generation of female swimmers who have taken the thirtieth Olympiad by storm. The swimmer from Maryland was only born in 1997 and is the youngest member of the entire USA Olympics squad. She improved her personal best by 5 seconds within less than a month to land the gold in London's aquatics centre and it must be said she will be eyeing up Rio excitedly in the expectation of more success. Another young female swimmer to hit the headlines earlier during the tournament was the 16-year-old Chinese competitor Ye Shiwen. Shiwen claimed gold in the 200m and 400m individual medleys, setting a world record in the latter and swimming the last 50m in an outrageous 28.93 seconds. Many people suspected doping but Shiwen passed tests and her record stands. Ledecky's fellow American, Missy Franklin, who is just 17 is yet another swimmer making waves with her performances in London and collected four gold medals and a bronze in a variety of events last week. All of these young athletes will be looking to improve further in the run up to the next Olympics.

It is not only amongst the female swimmers that success comes at a young age. Ian Thorpe, the Australian fan favourite who claimed five golds, three silvers and a bronze at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 was only aged 17 at the former and 21 at the latter tournament. The Thorpedo even retired aged 24 after some fitness issues led him to believe he was unable to compete at the top level. He made an attempted return to the pool in 2011, still aged only 28,  but earlier this year he failed to qualify to compete at this year's Olympics, making it clear that at his age he is no longer good enough to win medals. London 2012 has though, had the pleasure to see Michael Phelps in all his glory as the American became officially the greatest ever Olympian, adding four more golds and two silvers to his already stratospheric haul of Olympic medals taking him to a grand total of 18 golds and 22 medals overall, won across just three tournaments. But the Baltimore Bullet has now announced his retirement at the age of 27, an age where many other sportsmen are believed to be at their very peak.

So why do swimmers peak so early? BBC's swimming experts Steve Parry and Sharron Davies attribute it to hard work done by coaches and the fact that young competitors don't get fazed but surely there is more to it than that? Another theory is that swimmers 'burn out' as the sport has such a toil on the body that competitors need to stop their intense training by a certain age and then are not in a strong enough position to compete with the younger athletes who can maintain the intense training regime. Motivation could be another factor as after achieving so much early, like Thorpe and Phelps did, the thought of working so hard just to compete again in something they have already won would not be entirely appealing. One theory is that young swimmers, while having well-trained muscles, have not fully bulked out meaning that there is less unnecessary weight on their bodies, a slight advantage over their older, larger competitors. Regardless, it is clear that swimmers peak extremely young. Ledecky, Shinwen and Franklin will be expecting to dominate the pools at Rio 2016 but who knows? By then, someone who is currently just 11-years-old could be outpacing all of them.


It's the final week of the Olympics now but The Search for Excellence has plenty more to offer. James is off to the women's football semi-final between Japan and France tonight, and the triathlon, open water swimming, walk race and men's marathon later in the week. Make sure to follow him on Twitter @TSFE2012 and come back tomorrow for the next article.