Two-time Commonwealth Games and European Championships swimmer David Thompson has announced his retirement from competitive swimming.

Thompson first competed for Northern Ireland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, and at the 2018 Games on the Gold Coast in Australia, he was a semi-finalist the 50m Butterfly and a finalist in the 400m Freestyle Relay Final. The 28-year-old was also part of the Ireland team at the 2018 LEN European Championships in Glasgow.

Speaking on the announcement Thompson said “I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved in the Swim Ireland and Swim Ulster community for making my time as an athlete as enjoyable and special as it was; you all know who you are. In over fifteen years of competing, I was very fortunate to compete at two Commonwealth Games and a European Championships, memories I will cherish forever. Throughout my career I was very lucky to train in some of the best programmes in the country, most notably Paul Dennis at Bangor SC & most recently, Kevin Anderson at the National Centre (Ulster). The recent opportunity to train at a world class facility under the structure and guidance of such a great coaching team at NCU is something that I can guarantee will bring unparalleled success for swimmers in the very near future. I look forward to this next chapter in my swimming journey in growing my own swim coaching brand and attaining my coaching qualifications to give back all that I have learned to help swimmers achieve their goals, however big or small they may be.”

National Performance Director Jon Rudd was to say, “Any Irish swimming team was always a better place when David was a member of it and his humility, character and personality will be something that we and all other swimmers who have been on National Teams with him will miss. However, we look forward to supporting him on his future coaching journey with us, as swimming in Ireland will gain a great deal from David once we have him on deck working with aspiring international athletes. The knowledge and experience that he has gained is hard to establish through any book or course and if we can harness this in a majority of our international athletes when they choose to hang up their racing suit, we very much benefit from great people within our sport that have so much more to offer over and above that which they achieved in the pool. As a tremendous ambassador for our sport on this island, I am now looking forward to that which David can offer, through coaching, to young hopefuls over the years to come”

Stephen Cuddy, Operations Manager at Swim Ulster added “David has been a leading swimmer, role model and ambassador for Swim Ulster over the last decade. It is always sad when an athlete decides to retire, we will definitely miss his contribution he made to our teams over the years. What is pleasing is that David has decided to pursue his coaching qualifications, that can only be a good thing and our up-and-coming swimmers will be very fortunate to learn from someone who has lived performance swimming for so long. We are so grateful for everything that David has given the sport in Ulster over a long time, and we wish him well as he moves onto the next part of his swimming career.”