Finland’s most successful swimmer of all time, World Champion, Olympic silver medallist, and former world record holder Jani Sievinen announced on Monday that he would retire from the sport after this year.
Previously Sievinen had toyed with the possibility of continuing to Beijing 2008 or even until the 2012 Olympics in London.
Now the short-track European Championships in Helsinki in December look to become his farewell games. He has cited loss of motivation as the main reason for wrapping up what has been a long career, with more than its share of ups and downs. The games hosted in Helsinki seemed like a natural way of closing things off.
Sievinen, who will turn 32 at the end of this month, competed already in the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. He received an Olympic silver medal in his main event, the 200 metres individual medley, from Atlanta in 1996.
Sievinen’s world record of 1:58.16 in the 200m individual medley from the 1994 World Championships in Rome lasted unbroken for nine years.
