Ian Thorpe's tired, but he's getting faster.
Thorpe clocked the quickest 100m freestyle time of his comeback in a low-key meeting in Luxembourg on the weekend, but his 200m was slower than his time at the Victorian state swimming titles in Melbourne earlier this month.
The five-time Olympic champion finished sixth in the 100m at the Euro Meet in 50.76 seconds, improving on the 50.84 he swam in Italy in December and the 51.05 he clocked in Melbourne.
But he faded in the second half of the 200m final, finishing fourth in 1min 51.51sec, significantly slower than his Melbourne time of 1:50.79.
Australian head coach Leigh Nugent, who wants Thorpe to focus on the 200m rather than the shorter event at the Olympic selection trials in March, was encouraged by his increase in speed during a heavy training load. He covered the first 50m of the 200m in 25.3 seconds and clocked 53.4 at halfway, but swam around 29 seconds for each of the final two laps. ''His 100 was faster than last time and if he's tired, that's probably an encouraging sign,'' Nugent said.
''He won't be backing off in his training, he'll have to keep going even harder now. He won't have any rest until he gets close to the trials.
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