Australian Sam Short has made the agonising decision to pull out of the 800m freestyle final on Wednesday night at the world swimming championships in Singapore after suffering a “nasty” bout of food poisoning.
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Short, who won a silver medal on the opening night of the competition in the men’s 400m freestyle after finishing just 0.02 seconds behind Lukas Martens, made the emotional announcement in an Instagram post.
“Just wanted to let everyone know that I will not be doing the 800m final tonight after receiving medical advice,” Short wrote on Instagram.
“Extremely emotional after this decision as I was very excited to showcase what I can do and the training I have done! I still believe this is my best race distance and I was ready for a PB.
“After an awesome heat swim which I felt phenomenal, I got very ill very fast, which we believe is food poisoning from my hotel lunch. I have only been consuming meals from the hotel. My afternoon and night has been full of vomiting and all the other nasty stuff that comes with food poisoning! Not pleasant and extremely draining.
“I had full intention of competing if I started to show signs of improvement. However, this has not happened. I am going to try my best to recover as well as possible to help my team in the 4×200 relay on Friday. Sorry Australia.”
Short was a strong chance of picking up another medal but there will be another chance for Australia to win gold on Wednesday night when Mollie O’Callaghan races in the women’s 200m freestyle final.
Kyle Chalmers, meanwhile, races world record holder Pan Zhanle in the men’s 100m freestyle semis.
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