Jack Burnell
Jack Burnell (born 13 June 1993) is an English swimmer. Burnell won a silver medal in the 10 km race at the European Open Water Swimming Championships in 2016 but was disqualified during the same event at the 2016 Olympic Games. He retired from swimming in 2021. He is a performance mindset coach at club Brentford. Career. 2015. Burnell competed at the Kazan World Championships, and recorded a fifth-place finish in the 10 km marathon. This placing secured Burnell's place in the 2016 Rio Olympics, being the first Briton to secure his place. 2016 & Olympics Disqualification . In 2016, Burnell competed at the Rio Olympic Games, competing in the Marathon Swimming event, with the event beginning at the Copacabana Beach. In the Men's 10 Kilometre Open Water event at the 2016 Olympic Games, Burnell was disqualified for two yellow cards for unnecessary contact with other swimmers, after initially appearing to have finished fifth in a photo finish with the bronze medallist Marc-Antoine Olivier and Zu Lijun. The second yellow card came close to the finishing line after a tussle with the defending Olympic champion, Oussama Mellouli, who was also given a yellow card but ultimately  finished 12th. In an angry interview following the race, Burnell claimed that Mellouli had grabbed his leg and that it may have stopped him from winning, and said the first card for unnecessary contact had been awarded when there were no other swimmers around. Burnell's appeal against the judges' decision was not successful. 2017. Burnell claimed a gold medal victory in the year of 2017, when competing at the FINA World Cup in Abu Dhabi. Ahead of the World Championships in Budapest that year the swimmer revealed that he had been struggling with nightmares and depression since the Rio  Olympics. He went on to finished in fourth place in Hungary. 2021. Burnell finished 24th at the Doha World Cup in March and then announced his retirement from the sport the following month, ending his bid to reach the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games. Personal life. He began dating singer Ella Henderson early in 2020.