SYDNEY Australian swimming sensation Ian Thorpe will compete in six events at next month's Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games following the decision to add the 200-meters butterfly to his list. The 15-year-old Sydney schoolboy, who became Australia's youngest male world swimming champion at January's Perth championships, has never contested the butterfly at a major international meet. He is not even ranked in the top 50 over the 200m butterfly but his rapid improvement has prompted head coach Don Talbot to nominate him as one of Australia's three swimmers for the event in Malaysia. He beat compatriot Grant Hackett for the 400m freestyle gold at the Perth World Championships and holds the Commonwealth 200m freestyle record.

He did not contest the 200m butterfly at the games selection trials in May. But Talbot has slotted Thorpe into the event with Bill Kirby and Zane King for next month's games after consultation with the teenager's coach, Doug Frost. We were approached about swimming the 200m fly. That's the only reason we're swimming it, Frost said Monday. It wasn't through choice to go after it and chase it.

We're just swimming it because the opportunity was there and it's after his main events. The addition of the 200m fly will give Thorpe six events in KL including the 100, 200 and 400m freestyle as well as both men's freestyle relays. But Frost made it clear the freestyle and relays would be Thorpe's priorities, aware that Briton James Hickman's 1m58.36s effort over 200m fly at the British trials may be beyond his protege at this stage.

We're more concerned about the relays and the 200 and 400m freestyle, said Frost. Thorpe clocked a Commonwealth record of 1m47.24s in the 200m freestyle at the Commonwealth trials, beating world champion Michael Klim along the way and prompting speculation he could be close to breaking Italian Giorgio Lamberti's nine-year-old world mark (1:46.69). (AFP)