Swimming legend quits Games over injury

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SWIMMING through the pain barrier is what dual Olympic 1500m freestyle champion Grant Hackett has done for almost a decade.
But yesterday the 25-year-old announced a nagging shoulder problem would force him out of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne next March.

Hackett, Australia’s swimming team captain, will undergo arthroscopic surgery in Melbourne today to correct a suspected tear in the subscapular tendon underneath his right shoulder blade.

He insisted it was minor surgery and confessed that if the 2008 Olympic Games were approaching, he would probably fight the pain and take the risk of doing more damage. However he said he was putting his long-term career ahead of his desire to win a third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold medal before a home crowd.

Hackett has the opportunity to become the first male swimmer to win three successive Olympic gold medals in the same event.

Orthopaedic surgeon Greg Hoy, the man who fixed the damaged shoulders of Shane Warne and Patrick Rafter, has advised Hackett that he risks developing a major problem if he does not have the surgery now.

“It’s minor and I will be back in the water quickly, but it will cost me the Commonwealth Games,” Hackett said.

“It’s been a very, very tough decision because the Commonwealth Games mean a lot to me, especially being in Melbourne.”

He revealed that the shoulder had been bothering him since he returned from his break after the Athens Olympics last year, a period during which he won three gold medals and broke Ian Thorpe’s world 800m freestyle record at the Montreal world championships.

He had hoped that resting the joint after that competition would cure the problem, but it did not.

“It’s a biomechanical issue - a combination of the way I do my stroke and the hours of 1500m training that I do,” he said.

Hackett will be out of the water for a month or two, but vowed to come back faster and hungrier than before, after missing his first major event since 1996.

He predicted that Welshman David Davies, the Olympic bronze medallist, would win the 1500m gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in his absence.

Australia’s contenders include Olympian Craig Stevens, and Hackett’s Canadian-born training partner .