27-year old Brazilian swimmer Henrique Rodrigues has announced his retirement from competitive swimming. The two-time Olympian swam the 200 IM at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, where he placed 12th and 9th, respectively. Rodrigues anounced his retiremennt on Thursday on his Instagram story.
Last October, Rodrigues was suspended for 1 year (retroactive to March 2017) for testing positive for the banned substance Clostebol, a derivative of testosterone. By itself, it’s considered a relatively weak steroid, but was used as one ingredient of oral turinabol, a staple of the East German state-sponsored doping program back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Rodrigues had previously been a World Junior Champs bronze medalist in 2008 (with the 4×100 free relay), won a gold (4×100 free relay) and bronze (200 IM) at the Pan American Games in 2011 and won two golds (4×200 free relay, 200 IM) at the 2015 Pan American Games. He missed Brazil’s World Championships team last year, so no results from Budapest were vacated.
Rodrigues finished 8th in the A-Final at the 2018 Maria Lenk Trophy in the 200 IM, 16th in the 100 back, and 13th in the 200 breaststroke. He’ll finish his career this weekend at the Sao Paulo State Championships with swims in the 50 and 100 free.
