Shawn's Retirement

MY THOUGHTS ON SHAWN'S RETIREMENT


I'm a bit late posting on this, but Shawn's decision to retire actually surprised me a little. While her failure to make the 2011 world team and general struggles during the 2011 meet season showed the detrimental impact of her knee injury, I really thought Shawn had one more Olympics in her.

The fire and spark she has always shown in her performances showed her fighting spirit, and her willingness to do anything to win. While she displayed great sportsmanship throughout the 2008 Olympics, going into the all-around as the favorite to win and coming up 6 tenths short was obviously a major disappointment.

With Shawn's first Olympics occurring the year she turned 16, she was perfectly positioned for a second Olympic cycle. After all, Nastia will be 22 going into her second Olympics (if she makes it), and Svetlana Khorkina was 25 when she won silver in Athens. But of course, I have never had a torn ACL, MCL, or miniscus, so I have no idea what those injuries feel like. The pain and weakness caused by the skiing accident on top of the necessity that she train less, apparently made the Olympic comeback impossible. Which makes me wonder if Shawn knew all along that she wasn't coming back. Her appearance and media summit makes it obvious that she wanted in on the Olympic hype and sponsorship opportunities. This is also why I think she left her retirement announcement so late, waiting right up until the start of Visas to tell everyone. And you can't really blame her for milking a career which was done by age 20 for all it was worth.

Shawn's retirement will definitely make the Visas a lot less exciting. And with Shawn out, I am convinced that Nastia is the only '08 team member with any hope of making a second Olympics.