2017 World Champion Madisyn Cox Officially Retires from Competitive Swimming

American swimmer Madisyn Cox, a 2017 World Champion, has announced her retirement from competitive swimming.

“What a ride it was,” Cox said in an Instagram post featuring photos from throughout her swimming career. “After all the highs and lows, I have nothing but gratitude for this journey and the people that made it possible.”

While Cox hasn’t raced since the 2021 US Olympic Trials, where she narrowly-missed qualifying for her first Olympic team, she didn’t officially retire during her first year of medical school. The only ‘official’ way for a swimmer to retire is by informing anti-doping authorities, thereby removing themselves from drug testing pools.

USADA records show that Cox has been tested three times in 2022, including in the 3rd quarter (which wrapped at the end of September).

The 27-year old Cox referred to the highs and lows of her career in her post. The high of her career came in 2016 and 2017. Cox finished 4th in both the 200 IM and 400 IM at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, which qualified her for the year-ending Short Course World Championships.

At those World Championships, she won three medals: silver as part of the 800 free relay, along with bronze medals in both the 200 IM and 400 IM.

She jumped off that into a 2017 where at the more prestigious long course World Championships she won an individual bronze in the 200 IM and a gold medal in the 800 free relay. In that 800 free relay, she split 1:59.52 on the anchor of the prelims relay that qualified 3rd into the final before ceding her spot in the final.

In February 2018, Cox’s urine sample tested positive for the banned substance. trimetazidine. The maximum four-year suspension was reduced to two years after she testified that she did not knowingly ingest the performance-enhancing drug, but without a convincing proposal as to how the substance would have entered her system, left her suspension there.

After an initial proposal of contaminated tap water, Cox eventually produced evidence that a multivitamin she was taking had been contaminated. An appeal reduced her suspension to 6 months.

While Cox’s fastest times were on the other end of that suspension, she would never again qualify for an international team for the U.S. Her doping suspension also disqualified her from ISL eligibility because of the league’s zero-tolerance policy for anti-doping sanctions, even when athletes could prove their innocence.

In May 2021, at a local meet in Austin, Cox swam best times of 2:08.51 in the 200 IM and 4:36.61 in the 400 IM. That 200 IM time would have won at the Olympic Trials, but she added time to finish 3rd in 2:09.34: .04 seconds behind event winner Alex Walsh and .02 seconds behind runner-up Kate Douglass. She missed the final in the 400 IM.

This fall, Cox is beginning her second year at Texas’ McGovern Medical School in Houston, deferring her enrollment to chase a Tokyo Olympic berth.

At the University of Texas, Cox won 17 total All-American honors, including eight First Team honors. She was a three-time member of the Academic All-Big 12 First Team, a member of the 2014 Academic All-Big 12 Rookie Team, and a 2014 CSCAA Scholar All-American. She remains the school record in both the 200 yard and 400 yard IMs.

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