The swimming star was due to swim the Euromeet in Luxembourg Friday-Sunday, her first international competition since the European Championships in Rome last August.

But then Sjöström was hit in the back last weekend.

- I am back in training again, but I feel that I want to have a whole training week and be able to train without pain.

If it had been World Cup qualifiers or something like that, I would have been able to compete, but I feel that I don't want to rush into something like this at the beginning of the season, says Sjöström, who last week was named Female Athlete of the Year at the Sports Gala.

The comeback will take until March

Instead, the competitive comeback will be delayed until March when she will swim competitions in Nice and Marseille.

After a busy last year with success both at the WC (two golds and one silver) and the European Championships (three golds, one silver and one bronze) in long track, Sjöström took a break during the autumn where she cut back on training and refrained from competition, including short track - WC.

This year's big goal is the World Championships in long track in Fukuoka, Japan in July, a championship that has been postponed twice due to the pandemic.

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be enabled to play video

Read more about browser support

Sarah Sjöström wins Female Athlete of the Year