Olympic silver medallist Brenton Rickard is preparing for his final competitive swim as a Canberra-based swimmer, having decided to return to Queensland after the world championships in Rome.
The 100m and 200m breaststroke swimmer has decided he needs a change of coach and lifestyle after the July championships if he is to push on to the London Olympics in 2012.
''In terms of my swimming it's probably about trying to do less work better,'' Rickard, 25, said.
''I'm getting to the age where the body is starting to feel things a bit more than when I was younger and I think to combat that I need to do things better, less often. We're going to try to play around with a couple of things.''
Rickard's departure will end a 15-year relationship with Australian Institute of Sport coach Vince Raleigh. Rickard twice relocated to stay with Raleigh, first to Melbourne and then to Canberra.
Rickard hoped to swim at the Southport club under Glenn Baker, who guided emerging butterfly star Andrew Lauterstein to one individual and two relay medals at Beijing.
''He's the type of guy who'll be willing to try some new things, do things a bit differently. He's the right type of fit [for] what I'm looking at doing.''
Rickard came to Canberra in January 2005 after his shock failure to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
He established himself as one of the top three in the world in his 100m and 200m disciplines. Last year he won his coveted Olympic medal in the 200m in Australian record time.
Rickard said he decided he would move to his home state soon after the Beijing Olympics. His girlfriend Katherine was also keen to move to Brisbane to be closer to her family and friends.
'''It's obviously a big call for me. I've had great success with Vince, but this is something I feel I need to do,'' Rickard said.
''I've loved my time here and I'm very grateful for everything the institute has done for me, but with London in mind I needed to try a few things before I hang up the googles, to at least say well you've done everything you could have.''
Raleigh said Rickard parted with his best wishes and accepted that in sport relationships usually came to an end.
''Athletes move on, coaches move on. Wayne Bennett would still like to be coaching Darren Lockyer I'm sure, but he's moved on,'' Raleigh said. ''We've talked about this and he has my full support in whatever he wishes to do because of all the loyalty he's shown to me over a long period of time.''
Raleigh said he and Rickard were ''really trying to get the best out of each other in this last five weeks so we get a good result in Rome''.
Raleigh said he would stay working with a promising group of AIS swimmers including Pat Murphy, Ashley Delaney and Robert Hurley.