The deal is done: Ian Thorpe will prepare for the London 2012 Olympic Games, at least in part, under the guidance of Gennadi Touretski, the Russian head of Swiss Swimming and former mentor to sprint Tsar Alex Popov, SwimNews understands.

Thorpe is due to appear at a press conference in Tenero, Switzerland, on Wednesday, alongside Leigh Nugent, head coach to Australia, and Touretski, a former senior coach at the Australian Institute of Sport. The details of the arrangement are expected to be outlined at a conference organised by Swiss Swimming. 

In his first career, Thorpe was an ambassador for Omega and adidas. It is understood that both those arrangements are active. Thorpe headline sponsor for the Australian market is the airline Virgin Blue, which flew the swimmer to Abu Dhabi on its maiden flight to the UAE destination a couple of weeks back. 

While Thorpe may well dip in and out of the UAE from time to time, his main base will be Switzerland, where Touretski runs the performance centre for the national team. There are no Olympic medal hopes based at the centre.

Thorpe, triple Olympic gold medal winner at Sydney 2000 and Olympic champion over 200m and 400m freestyle at Athens 2004, officially quit the sport in 2006 but by then he had not raced at top level since the Games in Greece.

He announced a comeback on February 2 this year but has so far kept his choice of coach a secret. Touretski was among those tipped to be on team Thorpe from the beginning.

The careers of both Thorpe and Touretski are among the most successful in swimming  history. Tourestski coached Popov to Olympic gold over 50m and 100m freestyle in 1992 and 1996, before Popov returned from  being stabbed by a water melon seller after the Games in Atlanta, and swam on to a silver medal in 2000 over 100m behind Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (NED), who by 0.39sec blocked the Russian's way to becoming the first man in history to win the same crown at three successive Olympics.  Van den Hoogenband turns 33 today.

In 2003, Popov stunned the swimming world by lifting the world 50m and 100m crowns once more. However, in 2004 at the Athens Games he was not at best and it was Thorpe who kept Popov out of the Olympic 100m final, by 0.02sec, Thorpe the last man in on 49.21. The Australian became the first man ever to win Olympic medals over 100m, 200m and 400m at the same Olympic Games, taking bronze behind Van den Hoogenband's retained gold and Roland Schoeman. 

If both Thorpe and Touretski have enjoyed soaring moments, they also share the scar of doping allegations that were found to be unfounded.

The French newspaper L'Equipe reported in spring 2007 during the world championships in Melbourne, that Thorpe had showed "abnormal levels" of two banned substances in a doping test six months before he retired. Neither the swimmer nor his federation had  been informed of any adverse finding  because it had been decided that there was no case pending against him, it turned out.

An inquiry came to the same conclusion and FINA was among organisations that noted that Thorpe had "no case to answer". WADA rules, however, were broken, the contents of confidential paperwork from a laboratory leaked in way that looked designed to cause maximum damage to Thorpe and Australian swimming.  

At the time of the newspaper report, Tourestski said: "I don't want to believe this and I can't believe it."

That view was shared by the other man tipped to be on the list of those who might help guide Thorpe to London 2012, 

Jacco Verhaeren, head coach of the Netherlands and personal coach to Van den Hoogenband.  Verhaeren said at the time: "This is damaging somebody's career without any reason, and I think that's the worst about it."

Touretski had his own brusk with the taint of doping when a thief broke into his home in Canberra in 2001. The thief made off with a safe, which when recovered by police, contained a well-known and readily detectable steroid. The coach was charged under Section 37 of the 1978 Poisons and Drugs Act of Australia. 

Tourestski was cleared of any wrongdoing in a court verdict of "no case to answer: in late 2001 and reinstated to his job at the AIS after having been provisionally suspended while the case against him was considered. The stolen safe contained a preparation that was being taken by his mother-in-law. The most prized possession of Touretski's was also in the safe: one of Popov's Olympic gold medals, given to him by the sprinter as a way of saying thanks for all the hard work and dedication.

An engineer by training, Tourestki worked his way to becoming a coach recognised for thinking in unorthodox ways about how to get the best out of swimmers, including using nature to search for a winning edge. He once said: "If we want to improve, probably we should start from the movement itself. We should realise whether it's natural movement or it's technological movement." The natural movement in that thought won out from January 1, 2010, when non-textile suits that altered the angle of buoyancy in swimmers and boosted times on the clock, were banned. 

Thorpe won his first world title at 15, the youngest man ever to achieve the honour of a global swim crown. He did so wearing traditional textile briefs and set world records in such suits too. His trade mark look first time around, however, was the adidas bodysuit, black from neck to ankle and wrist. That cut of suit was banned along with non-textile materials last year.