Australia’s five-time Olympic champion Ian Thorpe is developing a new swimming technique as he works to return to elite competition for the first time in five years, reports said yesterday.

Thorpe, who retired in 2006 but is back in the pool aiming for next year’s London Olympics, is working under Russian coach Gennadi Touretski in Switzerland.

He is in hard training ahead of his comeback to competitive swimming at the World Cup short-course meeting in Singapore on November 4-5.

Thorpe, whose classic freestyle technique earned him five Olympic gold medals, 11 world titles and 13 world records in his prime, now looks a different swimmer in the pool.

“It’s still Thorpe. You can see it in the power of his kick, the extraordinary wave he produces when he swims at full speed and the seemingly effortless way he glides through the water,” said The Australian yesterday.

“But now his freestyle stroke looks like a hybrid of himself and Alex Popov, the great Russian sprinter who Touretski guided to four Olympic golds in the 1990s.”

Thorpe intends to race at three World Cup meets in Singapore, Beijing (November 8-9) and Tokyo (November 12-13), in which Tou-retski wants him to compete in a variety of events.