Australian swimmer and nine-time Olympic medalist Ian Thorpe has been battling a fairly serious infection shortly following a shoulder surgery.

The sad news that Thorpe may not swim competitively again was announced by his agent James Erskine.

While the infection has been a struggle for the Olympian, Australian media outlets have claimed the infection might take his left arm.

Erskine said those reports are nothing but “speculation.”

“It’s serious, but it’s not life-threatening,” Erskine added. He also mentioned that Thorpe was not in intensive care.

Sports Journalist Jim Wilson seems to think this might be it for Thorpe’s swimming career.

“I don’t think he’ll swim again.”Wilson told the BBC. “The tell-tale signs are his left shoulder and left arm give him a lot of trouble. Forget about swimming again, it’s whether he can use his left arm for the rest of his life. Right at this point in time there have been some fairly bad complications.”

The Aussie swimmer isn’t new to the media’s spotlight, publicly dealing other personal issues. Thorpe, nicknamed the “Thorpedo”, admitted to struggling with alcohol and spouts of depression.

In his autobiography, Thorpe admitted that he had spent “a lot of my life battling what I can only describe as crippling depression.”

“I suppose it was inevitable that I’d turn to other, artificial ways of managing my feelings, and I found alcohol,” he said.

The 31-year-old attended rehab earlier in the year in hopes of learning to cope with his struggles.

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