Australian swimmer Abbey Connor has pulled out of the upcoming World Championships for “personal reasons,” according to Swimming Australia. The organization declined to elaborate on the nature of those personal reasons.
Her withdrawal was first revealed last week when World Aquatics published the pre-meet doping test data that was absent Connor. In her place, the 2023 World Championship silver medalist in the 200 fly Lizzie Dekkers was added to the roster.
Connor, 20, trains under Michael Sage at the University of the Sunshine Coast. She debuted for Australia at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest and 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
She finished 12th in the 200 fly in 2022 and 14th in 2023.
She and Dekkers were Australia’s two representatives in the 200 fly at the Paris Olympic Games last summer, where Dekkers tied for 4th and Connor placed 7th.
When she was 15, Connor swam 2:12.60 in the 200 fly, breaking an Australian Age Records that had previously been set by Michelle Ford in 1978.
24-year-old Brittany Casteluzzo has had a breakout year to upset the two favorites in the 200 fly at the Australian Trials, winning in 2:06.91. In total, she ahs dropped almost a full second in 2025.
Connor placed 2nd in 2:07.14 to take the second qualifying spot, inching away from Dekkers late in the race. Dekkers was 3rd in 2:07.36.
After qualifying, Connor published social media posts celebrating her attendance at a third World Aquatics Championship meet.
Same supplier as Shayna Jack?
“and won a bronze medal at the 2024 lightly attended pre-Olympic World Championships.”
Wasn’t it Pudar?
It reads as if the author is implying Connor won back to back bronze medals at the 22 and 24 WSC Championships. However, it is Dekkers who won back to back bronze medals.
Why is it guilty until proven innocent for every other country EXCEPT for USA 🤔🤔
Unfortunately it’s like that for everything nowadays, and it shouldn’t be
With doping it’s absolute liability. Different rules kid.
Oli Morgan dropped out of Sette Colli for ‘personal reasons’ and i feared the worst but then he was announced on GB’s WC squad so its not a guarantee thats the case with Abbey Connor
For sure. The ambiguity does her a disservice though.
What’s ambiguous about ‘personal reasons’? It could be almost anything.
What isn’t ambiguous about just saying personal reasons? It’s quite possibly the most ambiguous reason to give for dropping out of the world championships
Does ‘ambiguous’ mean something different in Australia?
Shayna Jack 2.0
ouch. No, please don’t
Smells very fishy to me. Swimming Australia sweeping under the rug once again?
Once again?
We found out about Shayna Jack about 6 days after she withdrew.
Tell me, how long afterwards did we find out about Brinegar,Sims, Dwyer, the 23 Chinese swimmers,Yang etc etc. It was months or years. And you accuse Swimming Australia of sweeping under the rug?
I thought Sims was swept under the rug more than Shayna
I think Sims was swept under the rug more than Shayna…but Sims had a stronger case to be swept under the rug, right?
The devil is always in the details for doping cases. Sims provided evidence of a contaminated prescription medication. Jack provided the same explanation but crucially no evidence, and instead relied on lack of evidence that she took it on purpose to make her public case (with the help of a PR man who also works for a media outlet as an alleged journalist and was somehow doing both jobs on this same story???).
If Jack had provided evidence of a contaminated source like Sims did, I imagine it too would have been swept under the rug.
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“Swept under the rug” means it was hidden. Jack’s case was public after 6 days.
Sims’ case wasn’t known until after the decision was made.
that right. Look at the Dwyer case. Imagine if that was a non US athlete and the US won silver in either of those relays he got gold medals in. They would be calling for the medals to be stripped. Where have those calls been?
Lol. He did something stupid years later. Not the same at all. The Aussies went over board about Sun Yang but Jack is no different.
Yang had little or no punishment and got to swim (in 2019). Jack was out for 2 years and did not get to swim in 2019 or the 2021 Olympics. Big difference.
Sounds like a failed drug test to me.