Ian Thorpe’s first competitive race in five years went smoothly as the five-time Olympic gold medallist qualified sixth-fastest for the final of the 100m individual medley at the FINA World Cup shortcourse meeting in Singapore on Friday.
Thorpe clocked 56.74 seconds to finish his heat in second place behind Colombian Pinzon Omar (55.81) but looked comfortable as he secured a passage through to Friday night’s final.
In front of a small crowd at the Singapore Sports School, Thorpe looked slightly edgy before the race, but was a clear second throughout.
Austrian Markus Rogan (55.25) was the fastest qualifier while Australian Kyle Richardson (56.35) was fifth fastest.
The Singapore meet is Thorpe’s first competitive swim since the 2006 Commonwealth Games trials, after which he retired from the sport aged 24.
He announced his comeback in February this year and has been training under Gennadi Touretski in Switzerland but anti-doping protocols meant he could not make his competitive return for nine months.
Thorpe will also compete in the 100m butterfly on Saturday before moving on to World Cup meets in Beijing (Nov 8-9) and Tokyo (Nov 12-13) as he build towards the Australian Olympic trials in March.
While Thorpe has opted not to compete in his speciality freestyle stroke in Singapore and Beijing, he is pencilled in to compete in the 100m freestyle in Tokyo.
Earlier on Friday, Libby Trickett qualified for the finals of the 100m butterfly and 50m freestyle in her first international competition in two years.
Trickett, who is also targeting a spot on the Olympic team, was fifth fastest in both the fly (58.39) and freestyle (25.09) heats.
Five Australians reached the final of the 100m freestyle but former world record hold Eamon Sullivan (49.88) wasn’t one of them.
Sullivan showed the effects of an illness but Cameron McEvoy (47.87), Kyle Richardson (48.04), Matt Abood (48.22) and Andrew Lauterstein (49.35) all went through.
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