James Magnussen thinks Ian Thorpe will not qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games

James Magnussen thinks Ian Thorpe will not qualify for the 2012 London Olympic Games

The world champion and Australian veteran, James Magnussen believes that Ian Thorpe will not be able to achieve his 2012 London Olympic Games qualification dream.

The 20-year-old Magnussen, whose early season has frightened his opponents, expressed that it would be impossible for Thorpe to post an effort under the Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA) A-Time qualification standard in such limited time.

Thorpe, who is still almost two seconds slower from the FINA A-Time Standard, has nearly half a month left to improve his time, as the Australian Selection Trials for the 2012 London Olympics will start on March 15 in Adelaide.

Magnussen won the 100m freestyle gold medal at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai and remained undefeated in his main event so far. The Australian recently stated his aim of lowering the 46.91 seconds world mark of Cesar Cielo at the forthcoming Olympic
Games.

On the other hand, the five-time Olympic champion and greatest Australian swimmer, Thorpe returned to competitive swimming after five years of retirement in February 2011. With his comeback, Thorpe declared that he would try to ensure his seat in the Australian
team to London by proving his eligibility in the 4*100m freestyle relay team.

After his comeback, he agreed that he has little time left to prove his qualification therefore, he will be targeting the relay event instead of the individual 100m freestyle.

He also stated the same reason for not targeting his main events, the 200m and400m freestyle at the upcoming Olympic trials.

Nevertheless, Thorpe’s current 100m freestyle pace at the past few championships has been troublesome for his supporters. The 29-year-old Thorpe has not only failed to secure any medal in his 100m event but he also failed to post a sub 50 seconds effort,
a time that could ignite some hopes for his successful comeback.

Furthermore, Thorpe has clocked a pedestrian 52.28 seconds effort in the 100m freestyle at the 2012 Zurich International Meet, last week.

Magnussen believes that Thorpe is doing very well, but time is a big issue, which would not have been a problem, if he made his comeback a little sooner.

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Posted by Mursil Mehmood Butt on Feb 29 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry