Olympic swimmer Eric Shanteau is away to Beijing with a diagnosis of testicular cancer, and will detain his operation until before he competes there, the 24-year-old Georgia native assures the Associated Press.

His physicians authorized his being in the Olympic trials in Omaha, where he made the team in the 200-meter breaststroke, having finished up second ahead of previous world-record holder (and likely winner) Brendan Hansen.

“Discuss a life-changing experience,” said Shanteau, whose first reaction to his diagnosis was disbelief. “That’s as big as one as you can have, I think. You’re changed for the rest of your life. The few people I’ve talked to who’ve gone through this – and they’re all much, much older than I am – say I’ll know that even more in 10 years.”

He will be closely supervised this month and will give up the Olympics should his cancer seem to be scattering.

“If I didn’t make the team, the decision would have been easy: head home and have the surgery,” Shanteau said. “I made the team, so I had a hard decision. But, by no means am I being stupid about this.”