Kieren Perkins advises Ian Thorpe to travel less less during his Olympic qualifiers – Swimming News
Australian veteran and two-time Olympic champion, Kieren Perkins has advised the comeback king, Ian Thorpe to travel less during his 2012 London Olympic qualifiers.
Perkins stressed that travelling less would help the five-time Olympic champion, Thorpe to concentrate exclusively on his training program, expressing that there is not much time left.
The 29-year-old Thorpe had a splendid career in competitive swimming prior to his retirement. He retired in 2006, but returned to his beloved sports after five years in February 2011.
He gathered five gold medals in the Olympic Games of 2000 and 2004. He captured gold medals of 400m freestyle, 4*100m freestyle and 4*200m freestyle at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He also pocketed two silver medals in the events of 200m freestyle and 4*100m freestyle at these Games.
Later on, the Australian occupied gold medals of 200m and 400m freestyle at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He also earned a bronze finish in the 100m freestyle and a silver medal in the 4*200m freestyle at the same Olympics.
On the other hand, Perkins also criticised Swimming Australia for inadequately handling the careers of their star swimmers.
“I think what we see with the comebacks is that swimming as a sport is very deficient in managing older athletes,” Perkins said.
With few stipulations, the 38-year-old Perkins has remained one of the most strongest supporters of Thorpe’s comeback.
“I think, at this point, you'd have to say he's obviously got some challenges ahead of him. I think it's more that recognition that with the training and racing schedule he's undertaking, he's putting himself under a lot of physical pressure,” Perkins added.
After his comeback, Thorpe has participated in a couple of Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) organised events. Despite of continuous improvement in his timings, Thorpe failed to grab the podium in any of these events.
Recently, he submitted his fastest comeback time in the 100m freestyle at the 14th Luxembourg Euro-Meet 2012, where he posted 50.76 seconds and finished sixth in the event.
Nevertheless, Thorpe still needs to improve his timing by almost two seconds, as the Olympic-A Time Qualification Standard set by FINA for the 100m freestyle is 48.84 seconds.
Tags: