Ian Thorpe has made late changes to his training regime in an effort to find form before the Olympic trials in March, following disappointing performances at the Victoria State Championships last week. He sat down with coach Gennadi Touretski, national head coach Leigh Nugent and performance science manager Bernard Savage to analyse his performance, and together they identified three areas that need to be addressed: Thorpe’s fitness, his training stimulation and approach to racing.

“When he swam the 400m (before his 2006 retirement), his fitness came from the work he did in the pool but now he’s not training enough (in the pool) to get that fitness,” Touretski said from Switzerland yesterday.

“He thought what he was doing was enough to swim sprints but it isn’t. The key thing is that his athletic level is not in place. So he must spend more time doing cardiovascular fitness work.”

Thorpe doesn’t have the time to make those fitness gains in the water, so the focus will be on training out of the pool – skipping, cycling, treadmill work.

“He never did dry-land training before because he did the work in the water but now he must,” the coach said. “We are establishing that program.”

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