Yet each day the five Beijing-bound race walkers get together to sit over the same jigsaw puzzle, which admittedly they're making slow progress on.

In reality, St Moritz, Toluca and Vail are the names of three basic bedrooms in the Australian Institute of Sport's Altitude House in Canberra, a sealed-off section of the sports science building with a reduced oxygen level to simulate life at 3000m.

That's significantly higher than the peak of Mount Kosciuszko which is 2228m above sea level.

The scientific rationale behind training and spending time at altitude is that it stimulates the secretion of erythropoietin, more commonly known as EPO, which creates more oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

Before going to a pre-Olympics training camp in Japan, the five walkers coached by Brent Vallance are spending between 12 and 14 hours a day in the house over a total of 35 days. Vallance said his group had not followed fellow AIS walkers Nathan Deakes and Luke Adams to the real St Moritz training base in Switzerland because of the huge cost and the disruption to the athletes' work and personal lives.

The five walkers record their hours in the house on a timesheet in the kitchen/living room. Most hours are clocked up by sleeping, allowing the athletes to work and train in normal conditions during the day.

While the house is clean and comfortable, and certainly more spacious than its predecessor opened a decade ago, it can become cramped when filled to its 12-athlete capacity, as it was early this year.

For the moment the race walkers have the place almost to themselves, but in the next few weeks several members of the swim team will join them.

Erickson, who was the last of the AIS group to qualify for the Games, said life would soon get interesting in the five-bedroom house, which measures just 105sqm.

''When you've got a full house it can get pretty nightmarish. Trying to deal with one shower and two toilets when everyone's trying to get out to training at the same time is pretty tough.''

The bedrooms and kitchen in the house are sealed to maintain the altitude effect, but the central corridor and bathrooms are not. A sensor in each room sets off an alarm in the lab if doors to the sealed rooms are left open too long.

While the rooms are named after some of the world's most celebrated scenic alpine locations, the views out the windows onto the grounds of the institute are far less spectacular.

Wapshott's room doesn't have a window at all, making getting up for early morning training sessions tough with no outside sunlight. At least taking an afternoon nap is easy in a pitch-black room.

Stints in altitude chambers are commonplace for many Australian and international athletes, but there were ethical concerns raised when the AIS first embraced the technology in 1998.

Soon after the house was first opened Jacques Rogge, then-IOC medical commission vice president and now IOC president, said ''I don't like the issue that people have to go into chambers. That's not my idea of sport.''

In defence of the house, Wapshott said Australian athletes merely used it to counter a natural advantage enjoyed by rivals.

''Some of the Mexicans live at altitude all year round, so you could say that's a big advantage to them. We're only in here a few weeks a year, so I don't see how it's unfair.''

After the current 21-day block in the house the walkers will have one week in their own beds before re-entering for another 14 days.

Tallent will compete in his first race in Beijing 21 days after leaving the house, while the rest of the group will race 26 and 27 days out.

Vallance said altitude preparation was essential for all endurance athletes. Australian swimmers and triathletes have been at Font-Romeu in France (1900m) in recent weeks.

''Every athlete from 800m to a marathon does some sort of altitude training, whether it's training at altitude or living high/training low like we're doing. It clearly works so we have to have some way to do it.''