Olympic Silver Medallist Ben Proud Pulls Out Of World Short-Course Championships
Olympic silver medallist Ben Proud has withdrawn from the World Short-Course Championships that begin in Budapest on Tuesday 10 December.
The 30-year-old is instead continuing to build back into post-Olympic training following his historic performance at Paris 2024 where he became the first British man to win a medal in the 50 free.
Proud’s withdrawal follows those of Leon Marchand, who pulled out last weekend citing exhaustion, Olympic 10k bronze medallist David Betlehem of Hungary and Hunter Armstrong of the USA.
Proud had been scheduled to contest the 50 fly and 50 free in which he won gold at Abu Dhabi 2021 and silver at Melbourne 2022 behind Jordan Crooks of the Cayman Islands.
Proud – who in 2022 became the first swimmer to win world, Commonwealth and European titles in a single season – was by some margin the fastest seed into the 50 free with his time of 20.18, just 0.02 off Caeleb Dressel’s WR set en-route to the European short-course title in December 2023.
In the Briton’s absence, Hungary’s Szebasztian Szabo is elevated to top seed with his time of 20.74 as he shared silver with Florent Manaudou at the 2023 continental s/c meet.
