Swimming: Franklin skipping worlds to focus on recovery from surgery

The 22-year-old had surgery on both of her shoulders in January due to bursitis and did not want to accelerate her training in order to make the July 14-30 world championships.

(Reuters)

"If I had a deadline to try and get better by, we were really worried that that would rush things and that could really impact the quality of the therapy and the work that we were trying to do getting back," she said.

Franklin won four gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics but had a disappointing Rio Games where she failed to make it out of the semi-finals in the 200 metres freestyle and 200m backstroke. Her lone gold came in the 4x200m freestyle relay.

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Rutherford)