Swimmer Foster is planning Olympic return

Foster, who will be 38 if he makes it to Beijing, has been Britain's highest profile swimmer for the past decade because of his many successes and his run-ins with the sport's authorities.

The former world record holder at 50 metres freestyle has won a staggering 46 major championship medals and competed in four Olympics, starting in Seoul, 1988.

But he has never won an Olympic medal and was omitted in controversial circumstances from the British team for the 2004 Athens Games by the then national team director Bill Sweetenham.

Foster, who took silver in the World Long Course 50m final in 2003, swam well inside the Olympic qualifying time at the following year's British trials, but was seven-hundredths of a second outside the time Sweetenham had set for the event.

Amid much acrimony, he was not selected for Athens.

Foster made his contempt for Sweetenham's methods public and announced his official retirement from international competition after the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

But, two years on, he has had a change of heart. Encouraged by his time of 22.36sec — the fifth-fastest of the year — in the national championships last July, he is also enjoying a far better relationship with Sweetenham's replacement, Mike Scott.

Now he hopes to impress in the British Olympic trials, which start in Sheffield on March 31, and the World Short Course Championships in Manchester from April 9.

"I was going to use the British trials as nothing more than preparation for the World Short Course championships," said Foster, from his home in Miami. "But I'm not stupid. If I do as well as I think I'm going to do, then there's no reason why I shouldn't give the Olympics one last crack.

"I know I have retired from competing for Britain, but I'll definitely come out of retirement if selected for the Games."

At Sheffield, Foster will first have to meet the official 50m freestyle Olympic qualifying time of 22.35, which needs to be achieved during the heats.

He will then have to finish in the first two in the final to be selected.

He believes that only now is he reaching his optimum. "I've been training hard and made major technical differences to my stroke which have made me quicker," he said.

"Also, that time in the national championships was set with absolutely no training, which meant I died on my backside for the last 15 metres of the race. So I have every right to believe I can set a major time this year.

"I'm very proud of everything I've achieved, but I'm also aware that I've never won an Olympic medal. It's a gaping hole in my record.

"There's no way I'd want to go to Beijing to make up the numbers. If I can qualify, I'd be looking to round off my career with a medal.

"It would also make up for the huge disappointment of not going to Athens. To compete in five Olympics would be a great achievement."

Foster may also be responsible for another boost to British swimming as trainer to Katy Sexton, who became Britain's first women's world champion when she took the 200m backstroke title at the 2003 championships in Barcelona, but faded after a disappointing Olympics the next year.

Foster has been coaching Sexton in the United States and she may also return to the Olympics in Beijing.

"Katy's going really well, I'm taking my role as her coach very personally and she's looking good for a comeback in Beijing, too," said Foster.