Two-time U.S. Olympic medalist Jonathan Horton confirmed that he will miss the Rio Olympics, requiring left shoulder surgery.
Horton, who earned high bar silver and team bronze at Beijing 2008, is not retired and hopes to return to competition in 2017.
“But if I never compete again, I did as much as I could,” Horton said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “I’ve had a great career.”
Horton, 30, competed at the London Olympics with a right shoulder “torn to shreds,” a doctor told him right after the Games. He required reconstructive surgery on that shoulder and then tore a pectoral muscle in December 2013.
He had hoped to become the oldest U.S. gymnast to compete at the Olympics since 1956, according to sports-reference.com.
Horton, the 2009 and 2010 U.S. all-around champion, finished eighth and ninth in the P&G Championships all-around the last two years. He was not selected for either World Championships team.
"[The left shoulder] was a ticking time bomb,” Horton said, according to the newspaper. “It had been slowly giving way without me realizing it over the last three years, and it finally went now, unfortunately, and didn’t last me until the Games.”
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