Two-time Olympic champ Ous Mellouli will be withdrawing from the FINA World Championships in Budapest due to a training injury, the Tunisian national tweeted today.
Mellouli announced the news today on his Twitter profile:
Due to recent injury in training, I'm forced to withdraw my participation to World Championships in Budapest
— Oussama Mellouli (@MellouliOussama) July 12, 2017
Mellouli was the Olympic champ in the 1500 free back in 2008. He would go on in 2012 to win gold in the 10K open water event, along with silver in the 1500. He’s been a mainstay at the World Championships for well over a decade, winning his first World Champs medal in 2003. That year, he took third in the 400 IM behind Michael Phelps and Laszlo Cseh.
Mellouli would go on to medal in every championship up to 2013, though his two medals from Melbourne in 2007 were vacated due to a positive drug test.
He competed only in open water at Worlds in 2015, taking 23rd in the 10K. He also competed in both pool and open water at the Rio Olympics last summer, taking 21st in the 1500 free and 12th in the 10K.
There’s no word on the specifics of Mellouli’s injury or its extent, other than the fact that it will keep the now-33-year-old distance swimmer out of next week’s World Championships in Budapest.
Not suprising he doesn’t race anywhere anymore.
When was the last time he cared about pool swimming …. short course worlds 2014?
Rio: Mellouli was 21st in the 1500.
He had malleolar injury this year, perhaps wasn’t healed.
Oussama Mellouli was stripped by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, of his world championship and another world championships silver medal from the 2007 World Aquatics Championship, which was held in Melbourne, Australia. He was also suspended for 18 months retroactive to 30 November 2006 – all for testing positive for amphetamine,
Pretty tough to read an article that doesn’t even mention these facts, which as far as I know, are accurate.
Caleb – it appears it’s certainly tougher than making a critical comment on an article without even reading it. Mellouli’s vacated 2007 medals are mentioned in the second paragraph after the tweet embed.
If we’re going to clarify re: drug test reference, then let’s lay some context out there…because it matters:
Mellouli tested positive for an amphetamine from taking Adderall (for which he didn’t have a prescription) when studying to complete a term paper while at Southern Cal. The bans you reference were then applied retroactively after FINA sought stiffer penalties for the positive test (that Tunisia had known about) – hence, the 18 month suspension & nullification of the results you reference. There hasn’t been a positive test since that time.
The article could mention these facts, but it’s really not necessary – the primary focus is to update swim fans on the injury for someone that (as it states) “…medal[ed]l… Read more »
C’mon guys. I’m ardent against cheating as much as anyone, but then & now the Mellouli case was very disappointing to me.
First, he was forthright about what happened. He didn’t trip in the shower into a needle without realizing it. He didn’t rub what he thought was flax seed oil on his skin or take what he understood to be vitamins which turned out to be drugs.
What he did do was take an amphetamine to stay awake doing an end of semester paper while a student at USC. This was in December, finishing up the semester before heading to an in-season meet in Orlando while in the midst of heavy training. In hindsight that was poor judgement on… Read more »
Ty for your info. It really made the article more informative
Everybody is right. The article is speaking mainly about withdraw, but not only.
Aging is unforgiving.