{"id":457429,"date":"2020-12-16T14:34:54","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T21:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=457429"},"modified":"2020-12-16T14:34:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T21:34:54","slug":"citing-financial-issues-south-africas-zane-waddell-retires-at-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/citing-financial-issues-south-africas-zane-waddell-retires-at-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Citing Financial Issues, South Africa&#8217;s Zane Waddell Retires at 22"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Zane Waddell<\/strong>, an 11-time All-American at Alabama and the reigning world champion in the men\u2019s 50-meter backstroke, declared his retirement from the sport Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ofm.co.za\/article\/sport\/300125\/bloem-swimming-world-champ-shocks-with-retirement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an interview with OFM Sport<\/a>, the South African cited financial issues as a main reason for his retirement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just tough with Covid-19 and everything else happening right now,\u201d Waddell said. \u201cWhen I asked for funding from the national federation there was none available post the world championships in 2019. With the Covid-19 situation it just puts a lot of strain on business and sports federations alike and it\u2019s just tough to make ends meet when you aren\u2019t making an income from your athletic career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe plan is now to move on with life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Waddell finished a stellar career at the University of Alabama last spring with All-American nods in six events, including the 50 freestyle, 100 free and 100 back. His season ended prematurely with the cancellation of the NCAA Championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Waddell won an NCAA title in 2019 with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/alabama-stuns-in-200-medley-relay-robert-howard-closes-in-18-22\/\">the Crimson Tide\u2019s 200 medley relay<\/a>. He won five Southeastern Conference titles, including the 2019 100 back, with a school and conference record time of 44.10 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, he won the 50 back for South Africa at both the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/zane-waddell-posts-big-upset-for-world-title-in-mens-50-back\/\">2019 World Championships<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/zane-waddell-reclaims-50-back-record-at-2019-world-university-games-with-24-46\/\">2019 World University Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Away from the pool, Waddell was a four-time member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll and the CSCAA Scholar All-American. The management information systems and finance major won the SEC Postgraduate Scholarship and was named the 2020 SEC Swimming &amp; Diving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/zane-waddell-anna-hopkin-named-sec-scholar-athletes-of-the-year\/\">Scholar-Athlete of the Year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI do have other goals outside of swimming which I am going to try and achieve,\u201d Zane Waddell said, \u201cbut I am officially retired due to just a lacking of funding and companies not being in the position to provide financial assistance either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zane Waddell, an 11-time All-American at Alabama and the reigning world champion in the men\u2019s 50-meter backstroke, declared his retirement from the sport Wednesday. In an interview with OFM Sport,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8367,"featured_media":417940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,10],"tags":[124953,73143,122627,44804,46364,1086,65208,604,54361],"class_list":["post-457429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","category-world","tag-2019-world-championship","tag-2019-world-university-games","tag-2021-tokyo-olympics","tag-ncaa-swimming","tag-sec-swimming","tag-south-africa","tag-south-africa-swimming","tag-university-of-alabama","tag-zane-waddell"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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