MELBOURNE, Australia, May 9. WHILE Ian Thorpe hunts for homes in the Los Angeles area, fellow Aussie Grant Hackett is also considering a move to the United States. Hackett\u2019s interest in a move to the U.S. was reported by Amy Harris in an article that appeared in the Courier Mail<\/i>. The two-time defending Olympic champ in the 1,500 freestyle, Hackett would likely make his move after the 2008 Games in Beijing.<\/p>\n
On the mend from shoulder surgery at the beginning of the year, Hackett is expected to make his return to the competitive scene this weekend during a competition in Brisbane. He is slated to contest the 400 freestyle, an event in which he earned the silver medal behind Thorpe at the Athens Games in 2004. Thorpe recently revealed he is contemplating a move to the United States for training leading up to the 2008 Olympics.<\/p>\n
"I'm not sure if I would do it between now and Beijing but it's certainly something I would consider after 2008," Hackett said in the newspaper article. "Just to reinvigorate the training and to have a bit of different stimuli . . . something different. I think it would be fun." <\/p>\n
Coached by Denis Cotterell for the past 20 years, Hackett will spend three months of the year training in Melbourne under the watch of Ian Pope. That decision is designed simply to allow Hackett a change of scenery and to allow him more flexibility in handling his sponsorship responsibilities. <\/p>\n
"He can kill a few birds with one stone and it gives him a change of scene which you need every now and then," Cotterell said in the article. "The 1500 is an intense event to sustain for as long as he has, and what he is doing with that distance has never been done before. So we're trying different things and picking our way. If it doesn't work explicitly we will pull it back together next year."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MELBOURNE, Australia, May 9. WHILE Ian Thorpe hunts for homes in the Los Angeles area, fellow Aussie Grant Hackett is also considering a move to the United States. Hackett\u2019s interest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n