At age 34, he’s been training and looks in pretty good shape. He’s also reapplied to WADA drug testing pool. Says he’ll be just looking to swim club relay and maybe some individual swims at Aussie Nationals next April. When quizzed if he’d have a crack at next Oly’s he said probably not “but you never say never”.
Thorpe tried to comeback for London but bombed.
Phelps is planning comeback
Can Hackett do it?
Top 6 in 200free will get a ticket on the plane.
It depends on what he did while retired. Phelps never retired. He was still swimming 3-4 times per week the week after the '12 games. Thorpe clearly didn’t touch a pool for several months / years.
My guess is Hackett is a lifer. He never stopped swimming and the reason he is coming back is because he wants to swim in the Olympics one more time
Not sure he kept doing much if any. 6years off and rehab for stillnox dependence more recently. He’s back with his old coach Dennis cotterell at Miami (Qld) and his squad includes some handy distance guys. On the front page of Sydney newspaper looking pretty cut.
The question is how much training has he been doing and for how long?
It is unlikely that he can be competitive again in the 400,800,1500.
(Older athletes need to go long or go short. His maximum heart rate is not high enough and he would not be able to recover quick enough to fully handle the training).
He had good speed. He might be able to make the Australian team for the 4 x 200 relay. That would not be earth shattering for one of the greatest swimmers of all time.
Come on guys, you are talking like he is a master at 40 years old or something. He is 34, an age where many endurance athletes in out sport are at the peak of their powers. Guys in their late 30’s have won gold medals in the marathon. The only thing that could hold him back is his mind. Does he want it, or just going through the motions to maybe make a relay team. I don’t agree that he is too over the hill physically, but i don’t know his exact situation since retiring either. Thorpe gained a bunch of weight and lived the opposite of even an AG athlete. That is hard to just come back from and have success. His mind wanted it, but his body needed years to get back to any old form.
Look what Spitz did at 42 i believe. He swam in a whole different generation, took off 20 years plus, then came back after hardly any swimming and got within 4 seconds of his WR 100m fly. Of course by then that time was pedestrian, but still faster than most have ever gone here on this forum. If Grant has been swimming recreationally all this time, it could be just a good year and a half to get back to some real form. Not sure if that will be in time for him, not sure when he started this comeback, or if in any earnest.
His maximum heart rate is not high enough and he would not be able to recover quick enough to fully handle the training
read it on a forum so it must be true… That guy is 34, not 78 years old…and HR has only become such an “important number” due to the ability to easily measure it. How about we measure cardiac output during exercise or blood volume flow to specific muscle groups, or muscular efficiency, etc.
There certainly are physiological changes that take place with age but I highly doubt that there is a significant change taking place, from 29 to 34 let’s say, that would greatly limit the ability to race a 3.5min event. The muscular system is very plastic and adapts to stimuli. I think the question is what he did during his non-racing days and whether he is willing to put the work in required to race certain distances to reach his potential.
Those are strange looking photos but I really can’t see Hackett going in for photoshopped press photos. If hes’ swimming properly, he wouldn’t need to anyway.
Here’s hoping he shakes things up. Sun Yang being a doper and all.
I was just kidding.
He’s looking pretty sharp out of the water but the question is, what’s he prepared to do in the water. 400 is pretty competitive and you’d have to think he’d be less than keen at age 34 and having already done a gazzilion km to put himself through the work required again for the 1500 so that leaves the 200. Still lots of training but he’d have a great base and we know he can certainly swim a bit, so just maybe.
Given that his stated goals are to do a relay at nationals, gotta think he’s focusing on the 100 and 200. I don’t think he has a shot at making the individual events in either of those for Rio (too much depth at the moment) but he would have an outside chance at the relay squads.
He might swim the 400 800 1500 for fun, but really unlikely that he ever gets back to the form he had at his peak, and he would need close to that form to make the team in the individual events.
Seems like he has the right attitude. Just see how well he can go, and whatever happens, happens.
1:49. this weekend … Looking good. I don’t know the Aussie season, when will his first true test come?
1:49. this weekend … Looking good. I don’t know the Aussie season, when will his first true test come?
Nationals are in a couple of weeks, if that is his focus
1:49. this weekend … Looking good. I don’t know the Aussie season, when will his first true test come?
He’s down for a 1:50.68 on the start list. Ranked 18th. Got a bit to do to get down to top 6 (1:47.36). HIs 400 QT is 3:55.68 and 14th.
It would be a tough ask to make top 6 in the 200 or top 2 in the 400 but great to see him line up. My young bloke has a framed photo of him with grant taken when he was 10 or 11. Looks like he’ll now be racing him. Who’d of thought…
1:49. this weekend … Looking good. I don’t know the Aussie season, when will his first true test come?
He’s down for a 1:50.68 on the start list. Ranked 18th. Got a bit to do to get down to top 6 (1:47.36). His 400 QT is 3:55.68 and 14th.
It would be a tough ask to make top 6 in the 200 or top 2 in the 400 but great to see him line up. My young bloke has a framed photo of him with grant taken when he was 10 or 11. Looks like he’ll now be racing him. Who’d of thought…
You may have heard/read this back in '12 but your son going up against Hackett is kinda, sorta reminiscent of Chad Le Clos of South Africa, who touched out Phelps in the 200 fly. Le Clos was quoted as saying he was inspired to take swimming more seriously by MP’s '04 performance at the Athens games, and then 8 yrs later there he was, swimming against his idol in '12, not just once but 4 times in the 100/200 fly and the 200/400 IM. That must have been unbelievably cool for Le Clos, and I would think for your son also:)
Did he run out of money?
Or was his TV career not doing so well?
Neither, he worked at the same Bank I do and headed up one of the divisions from memory. Would have been long hours and lots of work, I think he chucked it and moved back to QLD for a quieter, easier life after his marriage breakdown.
Good luck to him, hope he has a lot of success.
Has a new lady I believe and is swimming back at Miami so he’s on the gold coast. Hope he does well (but not too well:). I think he had a rough trot with his mrs and the sleeping tabs thing. Well liked here in Aus
Did his popularity not take a bit of a knock after that apartment trashing incident? It was a bit worrying that his kids apparently witnessed the whole thing.
Like any public figure there was publicity over it. My Mrs, who’s synonomously pro wife, didn’t like the smell of it. There was a bit of ‘exaggerated’ about it. But Who knows the truth. They do I guess but I don’t trust the media as a generalisation. Not as bad as as many footballers that’s for sure. I’ve only met the guy once many years ago along with some of our other swimming ‘stars’ at the time (leisel jones, libby Lenton, Thorpie ) and he was so unassuming and pleasant. Just what I remember. I don’t think he can get anywhere near his best, and he’d need to in the 200, but just getting himself at 34, years after retiring, to 1:50 and 3:55 LC is pretty bloody impressive.i dip my hat
When I said he went a 1:49 this week I wasn’t rounding. He went a 1:49.79 at a meet. Maybe I don’t understand what yiu were saying.
I want to find out if he ever quit swimming completely. I really doubt that he did.
As for his chances to get down to 1:47. Put my prediction down for a 1:45.
But more importantly: guns what is your son up to? What is his event? I know he went a 49 in SCM. What’s his status? We all want to root for him!