MELBOURNE Olympic champion Grant Hackett wants swimming's world governing body to consider scheduling the inaugural 800 meters freestyle final on the same night as the 200 at next July's World Long-Course Championships in Japan.

FINA has agreed to introduce a men's 800 and women's 1,500 at the world championships in Fukuoka as part of an expanded program as a trial for the 2004 Athens Olympics but has still not decided on the final schedule.

Hackett, who won the 1,500 gold at the Sydney Games, said he wanted the 800 to be staged on the third day to give the long-distance swimmers time to recover for the 1,500, traditionally held on the final day.

That would force the Australian to skip the 200, the event in which he briefly held the world record last year, but would also enable him to avoid racing against 200 world record holder Ian Thorpe and Olympic champion Pieter van den Hoogenband.

"I just hope they put the 800 on the day of the heat of the 200 and final," Hackett said after easily winning the 200 final in the Oceania leg of the short-course World Cup series.

"I'm sure the 1,500 swimmers want to do the 400 on the first day to be able to recover in time for the 1,500, and if they put (the 800) on any other day it will be impossible for us."

Hackett's winning time on Wednesday of one minute 44.78 seconds was more than 3.5 seconds off the absent Thorpe's world record but still enough to give him a comfortable victory.

With most of the world's top swimmers gradually getting back into the daily grind of lap training, there were no really great performances on the second day of the three-day meeting, the fifth in the 10-venue series.

(Reuter)