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Dutch national record holder Luc Kroon has revealed his decision to hang up his goggles at the age of 23.
Revealed on Instagram last week, Kroon disclosed he recently suffered an injury with the incident representing another hitch along a journey of setbacks that led him to his decision.
“Unfortunately, for me the time has come to say goodbye to swimming.
“I’ve been swimming for as long as I can remember, and I loved every minute of it. I’ve seen the whole world twice, made friends in every corner of the earth and experienced things most people can only dream of. Last year I moved to Australia to train with @sandergoose and I loved every minute of it. But After 2 years of injuries, sickness and big changes I’ve decided that it would be for the best to put an end to my swimming career.
“I’ve had a lot of setbacks in the past years but nevertheless kept on going. I quit teams, had knee surgery, ruptered eardrums, got very sick during important meets. You name it, it happened. I always kept on going because I really like swimming and because I was good at what I love doing.
“Swimming is a sport that takes up a lot of time, energy and money, especially when you live on the other side of the world. I dropped out of Med school for my swimming career, left my friends and family behind to move to Australia, and spent thousands of hours in the pool that made it impossible to do a lot of other things. And I didn’t mind it, because I loved swimming.
“However, due to another injury I sustained last friday, I’ll be unable to get back into the water untill January, so season 2024/2025 is already over for me. And that means I have to start all over again, for the third time in 2 years. And that’s when you have to ask yourself: “is all of this still worth it?” The answer was always a loud and clear: “YES!”. But since last friday the answer is: “no”. I cannot, and I don’t want to “wait” another year in the hope my swimming will get better again.
“Last year was probably the most fun year in my career, and I’ve never trained as hard as I did last year. But the results in competition where just not good, not good at all. Everything went well in training, but as soon as I had to start swimming fast, my body just didn’t seem to work as it should. And in the end, this made me come to the decision to end my swimming career as of today.
“I would like to thank everyone who helped me during my career. My parents, my sponsors, fellow swimmers and everyone else.”
Kroon was entered in this week’s Australian Short Course Championships.
Kroon earned a trio of European Championships medals including as a member of the mixed 4x100m free relay at the LC Championships in 2020 and as an individual gold medalist in the 400m free and silver medalist in the 200m free the following year at the SC championships in Kazan.
He retires holding the current Dutch national records:
- SCM 400 free (3:38.33, 2021)
- SCM 800 free (7:44.18, 2019)
- SCM Men’s 4×100 medley relay (3:26.59, 2021)