Some of the biggest names in Australian swimming have weighed in on the biggest name in Australian swimming, Ian Thorpe, and his comeback attempt. Kieran Perkins thinks he should travel less. Former Grant Hackett coach Dennis Cotterell thinks that his attempt too late.

But now, the biggest swimming name of the 20th century, American Mark Spitz has weighed in on Thorpe’s comeback. He told The Australian that it would be easy for Thorpe to come back to training, but that it was re-learning how to compete against the new generation of swimmers that would cause him the most problems.

“I don’t think as an athlete you forget how to train, what you really lose is that you don’t know how to race the new competitors. One of the nuances of why I was successful is that I knew how to compete against those who I had been competing against for years. When I came to the pool, I knew that they were wondering who would finish second behind me,” Spitz told The Australian. “”So therein lies the handicap. (You) have lost the edge of how to compete against the new stars.”

Spitz is speaking from experience. 17 years after retiring himself (albeit at a much older 41-years old), Spitz failed to even come close to qualifying for the 1992 US Olympic Trials. Recent results seem to indicate that there’s some truth to Spitz’s word. All reports are that Thorpe is training very well, yet competitively the results haven’t shown up yet in his times.

Spitz has also made predictions about what Michael Phelps‘ event schedule will look like for London. He’s calling that Phelps will swim the 100 and 200 flies, the 200 free, and two of the relays – the medley and 800 free relays. Overall, he expects Phelps to swim 6 events (it’s not clear which one he expects to be the 6th – the 200 IM or the 400 free relay are the probable candidates).

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