MOSCOW, May 17. /TASS/. Russian swimmer Yevgeny Rylov plans to end his sports career after the 2024 Olympic Games to be held in Paris, the sportsman said on Tuesday at the educational marathon conference New Horizons.
"I think I am going to call it a day after the next Olympic Games. Some people think that quitting at 28 is too early, but it gets harder for me to compete. I have a goal to become the fastest in the world, so far I haven’t achieved it. Yes, I have world records, but still," Rylov said.
Russia’s 25-year-old swimmer Rylov won two gold medals (in men’s 100-meter backstroke and in 200-meter backstroke events) as well as a silver medal in men’s 4·200-meter freestyle event at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. He is also the two-time world champion in 200-meter backstroke competitions at the FINA World Championships in 2017 (Budapest) and in 2019 (Gwangju).
On February 28, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments referring to a special military operation in Ukraine.
Following the IOC recommendations in late February, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
On March 23, the Disciplinary Panel of the world’s governing body of swimming, FINA, initiated a probe against Russia’s two-time Olympic Champion Yevgeny Rylov. "The FINA Executive confirmed that the FINA Disciplinary Panel has opened a procedure against Russian swimmer Yevgeny Rylov for a potential violation of the FINA rules following his alleged participation in a pro-war rally at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow," the statement from FINA said at that time.