Comment: Comeback fever has struck the sport of swimming: Ian Thorpe, Laure Manaudou, Ed Moses, Brendan Hansen, Ian Crocker, Libby Trickett and Mike Brown are all on the list, with the queen of comebacks Dara Torres training for London 2012. 

What does it all mean? Is it good or bad for the sport? That's the question Swimming World put to me at their dawn and my dusk for an upcoming Split Time feature on their TV channel. Not an easy one to answer. 

Host Garrett McCaffrey recently asked Tom Dolan, Olympic medley champion of 1996 and 2000, about comebacks and heard the swimmer say: not good, it begs the question 'why have those swimmers not moved on in life and found new challenges and aims in life'?

The answer is complex and is caught up in the greater amounts of money in the sport, the relatively large sums of money to be had at meets that while tough in their way and certainly full of world-class performance fall shy of the best-possible billboard for swimming as seen at Olympic Games and world long-course championships. Debbie Meyer (1968 Olympic triple champion) once reminded me that in her day the Olympic Games and national championships was just about it, the chances of racing overseas rivals almost nil. 

Today, there is a meet going on somewhere just about any day you care to mention, with short-course meets in the long-course season, long-course meets in the short-course season in the mix of endless activity. The frenetic pace of a cluttered calendar makes it ever more difficult for federations and their head coaches to make long-term plans for the only meets that actually count towards funding and genuine record of success, especially in these days when swimmers can pretty much please themselves which meets they swim in, where and when.

Careers are, logically, much longer and some, like that of Therese Alshammar (SWE), are a fine representation of commitment to long-term excellence and prove that age is no barrier to pursuit of self-improvement. Beyond the money, a love of swimming is married to the magnetic effect of feeling a part of a community, of belonging. Hard to give it all up in the days of Debbie Meyer. Why give it up at all today if you don't have to? A reasonable question and one that those who do retire but find no alternative life come back to when they wonder where to earn their crust and find that the simplest (not easiest) answer is back in the pond.    

On the positive side, comebacks offer some great potential to see old scores settled, to see whether old dogs can learn new tricks and throw down gauntlets that makes the job of the next generation that bit trickier. They also give us all a chance to appreciate the skills and talents of great names all over again, with many a fine story to be told in tow.

On the downside, they offer a temporary escape for national programmes that are simply not filling the void left by great swimmers and squads. Persuasion by coaches, managers, marketeers and merchandisers is part of the tales of Thorpe and Trickett, for example. Of course, the swimmer then has to do the work and answer the question: will it be Michael Jordan or Michael Schumacher - or Lance Armstrong or Bjorn Borg or Mark Spitz or any number of big names who found that their eyes were bigger than their bellies in an environment that often favours the hungry cub not the predator past its prime. 

On Split Time, we agreed that every swimmer has a right to make a return. We also agreed there were issues and problems attached to that call. The biggest of all was the potential to cheat among those who dip in and out of the random testing system at random and build up for the next big bout beyond the system before declaring themselves a part of it once more. The nine months rule is both soft and unfair, penalising nations with centralised structures of trials and qualification meets more than those who need only post a time sometime, whenever, for their national federation to say 'you're back on the blocks'.

Personally, I find the prospect of seeing Thorpe race (with genuine intent to show himself to be the very best that he can be) once more a thrilling one. The same for Crocker, Moses and all the rest. I also appreciate Dolan's point that in some cases at least, the comeback reflects a shortcoming of a system that prepares swimmers well for the race pool but not for life. The lack of genuine grasp of the wider world, and that even in relation to the role of the swimmer, is heard oft in the words of shoals of athletes whose reply to the question 'what next' is: 'I'd like to do media'; 'I'd like to coach'; 'I'd like to have a brand named after me' or some such statement. What many often mean is that they want success hard-fought for in the water to serve as a free ticket to a profession or way of life that they have little understanding of, never trained for and one that may not actually suit them one little bit.

Comebacks can dazzle and on the scale of Thorpe catch the world's attention enough to have sponsors salivating over their partnership prospects and getting so tongue-tied when faced with announcing what surely should have fallen to the swimmer to announce that they forget which airline they're running. Comebacks can also block the drains and delay the development of whole programmes. 

In terms of how the wider world perceives swimming, there are arguments both ways: have the same names in the frame too long (as tennis suffers at times) and it feels like the show repeats never end. On the other hand, following the long-term careers of phenomenal athletes endears many to the protagonists in question and keeps them hooked. In the mix is the comeback trend that focusses on the old-calendar model of Meyer's day, when the Olympic Games was swimming's bright moment in the sun before four years of blackout beyond its own borders.

Swimming's answer has been to find ever greater numbers of things to do, concepts to "refresh" and "draw in new audiences", skins and duels among them. But some of that new activity (not new at all, for there is nothing new under the sun to a great extent) is best confined to the blackout beyond the sport's own borders.

This weekend offers an example. In other circumstances, the Germany Vs Britain duel would be well worth a second glance for those who dip into swimming occasionally or still have to be persuaded to sit and watch beyond the Olympic heights. And yet, good as some of the racing will doubtless be and fine as the experience for swimmers from both nations will be, and splendid as it would have been to watch the likes of Paul Biedermann once more (the world champion is out with a shoulder injury), the product is not one that is likely to sell to the big crowd, truth be told.

Why? For the same reason that it is hard to explain to a single sports editor anywhere in the world why the duel concept works when Germany A takes on Britain B, for the sake of argument. Here's the line-up and anyone into swimming will see the drop, note the argument and understand. Originally, the meet was supposed to have been held in camera, a training exercise designed to raise the sights of swimmers from both countries. Then, it was felt that the duel was good enough for public airing. 

In Swansea last year it was - but largely for a British audience. In Essen this year it is - but largely for a German audience. What you want is swimming's Ryder Cup. What you get is something insiders can understand and appreciate in terms of its value to the squads but is not going to get backsides parked in seats beyond its own backyard.

Ian Thorpe et al will draw in the crowds as they return to the fray but the questions remain: what then for those who retire anew, some having fallen down the pecking order second time round? And what of those among the generation on the cusp of a breakthrough but perhaps find themselves locked out and lost to the sport? The latter argument is easy to blow over: sport is tough, it is about winning, no matter what age you are, so step up or step aside.

That simple view is one that Ian Thorpe - no matter how he defines success for himself and no matter what commercial benefit may be in the mix - will surely recognise as the measure that will be applied to him by the wider horizon of the world that awaits him, come what may.