100m butterfly Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden has announced she will skip the 2016 Short Course World Championships in Windsor, ending her season at the Swedish Short Course Nationals taking place November 4th-8th.
This comes after she surprisingly announced her split from longtime coach Carl Jenner, with whom she had seen massive success, including three Olympic and five World Championship medals over the last two years alone. Jenner will move on to head-up Sweden’s junior development program.
In her Instagram post where she announces the coaching change, Sjostrom mentions that this move was planned prior to Rio and that she would now train under Johan Wallberg. Wallberg has recently been put in charge of Sweden’s Swimming Federation National High Performance Center up until 2020.
After the Swedish SC Nationals conclude, Sjostrom will head to South Africa for her first assignment with Project Playground, an organization that works with vulnerable children and gives them more opportunities through sports, organized activity and social activities. Sjostrom was announced as an ambassador for Project Playground back in September.
It is expected that South African Olympians Chad Le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh will also help out with the Project while Sjostrom is in South Africa.
Sjostrom will forego her World Championship titles in the 200 free, 50 fly and 100 fly by not heading to Windsor, as she was the winner of all three two years ago in Doha. She also won silver in the 100 free.
As for how Sjostorm is faring at her final meet of the season, she has already picked up four wins including a new National record in the 100 IM.
The year in the picture caption is a bit off!