Doug Frost, the former coach to Ian Thorpe, is abandoning Australia to head one of Britain’s new Intensive Training Centres. The man who led Thorpe from a talented nine-year-old to a triple Olympic champion and seven-time world champion, will be based at Stirling in Scotland with immediate effect.

The centre is one of five that are being established in Britain this autumn in line with a blueprint laid down by Bill Sweetenham during his time as performance director in Britain, partly to prepare for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Ben Titley will run the centre at Loughborough, while coaches to Olympic medal winners in Beijing, Sean Kelly and Dave McNulty, will lead programmes at Stockport and Bath respectively. An announcement is pending on the Swansea centre.

Frost, 65 next month and a former senior swimming coach for the Australian Institute of Sport, said: “I’m looking forward to the challenge of setting up the new centre. After working at elite level in swimming for the past 18 years I believe I can help make Great Britain a dominant force in international swimming in 2012.”

Britain’s new head coach, Dennis Pursley, an American, said: “Doug is best known as being the coach that took Ian Thorpe to his greatest achievement and we know he will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience into the ITC network. He has an excellent track record of producing results.”

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