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Kyle Chalmers says Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games is possible after contemplating retirement
Six months after thinking he would never race again, Kyle Chalmers is taking the biggest gamble of his fabled swimming career.
That risk is already being rewarded to the extent Chalmers has put the Brisbane 2032 Olympics on his agenda.
Last December, the champion freestyler was retiring.
"I had my Christmas break and honestly, I thought I wouldn't come back after Christmas," Chalmers said on Sunday.
The 26-year-old had just found out his fiancée, Norwegian swimmer Ingeborg Loyning, was pregnant.
"I didn't really know how that was going to go with swimming," he said.
Chalmers and Loyning, based in Adelaide, had created a swim academy serving clients in person and online.
"The only reason I got back in the pool was because we had some Japanese swimmers coming to train with us, and also Matt Wilson was coming from NSW to train with me for a few days," he said.
"So, I felt I owed it to them to be at training because they had come to train with me.
"And then I came back and just absolutely loved it.
"I'm not associated with … a high-performance program. I'm there with people that are paying to be there, they love swimming."
Chalmers shelved retirement and, with Adelaide-based sports physiologist Jamie Stanley, took a gamble.
They changed the training program that propelled Chalmers to the pinnacle in a career reaping nine Olympic and 12 world championship medals.
Chalmers has halved his training distance in the water in favour of cycling and running.
"It's a bit of a gamble changing what I know works," he said.
"I have done the same thing for the last 13 years, so to actually change so much is a bit of a risk.
"It's not about training harder; it's about training smarter … it's very different to what anyone else is doing because it's based around two other sports that are very different to swimming."
The first test of Chalmers's new regime came in April when he raced in Norway.
The result stunned the man who has won gold, silver and bronze medals in the 100m freestyle at the past three Olympics.
Chalmers clocked 47.27 seconds in his pet event in Norway — his fourth-fastest time ever and quickest outside of major meets.
He followed with a personal best, 21.78, in the 50m freestyle. A week later in Sweden, he set a PB in the 50m butterfly, 22.89.
"It was a massive shock for me," Chalmers said.
"It's nice to be swimming personal best times at almost 27 years old."
Chalmers, who turns 27 on June 25, will race at Australia's world championship selection trials in Adelaide starting Monday.
He's bidding to make his fifth world championship team for the July 27-August 3 titles in Singapore.
Chalmers also wants to become the first man to win 100m freestyle medals at four consecutive Olympics at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
"LA is a massive target of mine," he said.
"But Brisbane (in 2032) might even be a possibility."
AAP
