Challenge: Ian Thorpe returns to Australian swimming to see plenty of rivals for Olympic places (Photo: REUTERS)
It’s one of the most eagerly anticipated comebacks of the year, certainly in swimming circles, and quite possibly in sport generally.
After five years out of the water Ian Thorpe makes his competitive swimming return at the Singapore leg of the Fina World Cup tour, with a plethora of interested spectators eager to see what sort of shape he is in and to assess whether he can be a contender in London next year.
Having missed the 2006 Commonwealth Games through illness, Thorpe hasn’t been seen in international waters since the Athens Olympics, a competition where he cemented his place as a great of the sport by defending his 400m freestyle crown and adding the 200m freestyle title that had eluded him at a home Games in 2000.
For good measure he also picked up bronze in the 100m freestyle in Athens and it is on the shorter events that his comeback has been focused.
Even during his middle distance heyday, Thorpe often expressed a desire to improve his sprinting and given the relatively short period between announcing a return in March 2011 and the Olympics in August 2012, it was always likely that the sprints would be the priority, with there being simply not enough time available to become competitive over 400m.
To that end Thorpe has aligned himself with legendary Russian coach Gennadi Touretski, the man who guided the great Alex Popov to consecutive Olympic sprint doubles in 1992 and 1996 and who was responsible for the distinctive straight armed freestyle that took Michael Klim to a 100m freestyle world record.
Based in Lugarno in Switzerland, largely out of sight, Thorpe and Touretski have quietly been going about their business to prepare for this week’s big splashdown.
Expectations are unsurprisingly high, but a dose of realism is needed.
Looking at the case of fellow Australian sprinter Libby Trickett, the former women's 100m freestyle world record holder who was somewhat off her best when she returned to the race pool in July this year, gives credence to the view that Thorpe will not be on the pace immediately in Singapore .
What will be more interesting is whether he can develop his speed sufficiently in time for the Australian Olympic trials early next year. Such development is likely to mean technical changes to his stroke, but even if these are bedded in, Thorpe still faces a monumental challenge to even make the Australian team.
There has been a presumption that all Thorpe has to do is turn up to book his place in London, but the facts don’t necessarily reflect that view and, in fairness to Thorpe, he himself has said that he is prepared for failure.
Remember that Australia boasts two of the fastest freestylers of all time in Eamon Sullivan, a former world record holder, and James Magnussen, the fastest man ever seen in a textile suit, and that the Australian 4 x 100 freestyle relay team won the World Championships in Shanghai.
Thorpe’s best ever time is 48.56 which is slower than the best times of all four of that quartet, albeit that some of those times benefited from bodysuits providing more assistance than that which Thorpe wore, and would only have been good enough for 18th in the 2011 world rankings, behind a fifth Australian, James Roberts.
Against that background just making it to London will probably mean Thorpe swimming faster than he ever has before.
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