Pride comes before Libby Trickett's final call Libby Trickett announced her retirement from swimming in Melbourne yesterday. Picture: Stuart McEvoy Source: The Australian THERE came a moment two months ago when Libby Trickett, winner of 17 gold medals at major championships, finally felt proud of her achievements. "I had gone for a swim and there was a moment when I suddenly felt proud of myself - for probably the first time in my career I felt proud of what I had done," she recalled yesterday. There's an element of being an athlete where you can't be satisfied, and I never had been before. That sense of contentment eventually led Trickett to conclude that she was ready to move on from her swimming career. She has struggled with a wrist injury since tearing the tendon in the joint last November. She underwent reconstruction surgery in December and has made slow progress in her bid to return to full training. The wrist still troubles her and she has been told she will never regain full range of movement in the joint. In the past couple of months she realised that she no longer had the resilience to overcome this latest setback. "After London I was sure I wanted to keep swimming to the next Olympics but it appears the universe had different plans," she said. The thing that was the catalyst for me was the wrist injury. If it had happened five years ago I would still have been very keen and able to get past that but at 28 it becomes a lot harder to keep that momentum. She announced her retirement last night, for the second time. Trickett initially retired in late 2009, but after nine months she announced a comeback. She struggled mightily to regain her fitness but managed to qualify for her third Olympic team in London as a member of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay, which delivered her fourth Olympic gold medal. But after another eight months out of the water and faced with another mountain to climb, she realised she no longer had the necessary desire. Trickett has joined Channel Ten's new program Australia's Greatest Athlete and she and husband Luke plan to start a family.