Lane lines from 2011 -  a trawl through the aquatic headlines of the past year: January and February

JANUARY

5: Daniela Samulski, the German sprinter, quit top-flight competition

5: South Korean swim star and Olympic 400m free champion Park Tae-hwan renewed his contract with Australian coach Michael Bohl

5: Italian Olympic and world champion Federica Pellegrini was reported to be in talks, via the Italian swim federation, with Philippe Lucas, mentor to her arch rival of yore, Laure Manaudou. The talks would lead to the Italian spending a season under Lucas's guidance in Paris but the relationship foundered after Lucas was lukewarm on the idea of him spending some of his time back in Italy in pursuit of Italy's biggest aquatic asset

10: Three months after the Indian capital waved goodbye to the Commonwealth Games, the swimming venue remained locked up, unused as the nation reflected on a report from the Delhi regime's Central Public Works Department that showed that the $225-million budget to renovate five of the biggest venues - including the main stadium and swimming pool - more than doubled to $550 million. The overall cost of the Games is believed to have trebled from $2 billion to $6 billion. And then came allegations of corruption, with police raiding the home of Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the Delhi 2010 organising committee, as two other former Games officials sat in jail awaiting trial on corruption charges

12: Laure Manaudou, the 2004 Olympic and 2007 world champion, reveals that she is indeed on true comeback trail, training at Auburn in the US, but with the intention of simply having fun this time round

13: Susie O'Neill, fellow Australian Olympian Mark Stockwell and his wife Tracy Caulkins, medley legend for the US, are among those affected by the floods in Brisbane, where they live in the same street at Yeronga

13: Days after Park Tae-hwan resigned with coach Bohl in Australia, Roh Min-sang, mentor to the Olympic 400m freestyle champion, resigned as head coach to the national squad of Korea

14: Aussie Swimmers Wade In For Flood Relief: Queensland has a proud history of producing champion swimmers and those elite athletes and their interstate colleagues jumped in to pledge money and support for flood relief in Queensland and NSW

14: Coralie Balmy, the French middle-distance ace, switches coaches at the Antibes programme, her new guide the former 'fly ace Franck Esposito

14: "The clock is running out and it's time to put all the focus on one thing." - Michael Phelps on the eve of three days of training in a race environment at the Austin Grand Prix alongside Ryan Lochte

14: At the Austin grand prix, Michael Phelps wins twice but only once in an A final (100 'fly) Ryan Lochte wins the A final Phelps misses (200 free)

15: At the Austin Grand Prix, Missy Franklin, 15 and 6ft tall, wins two races in a matter of minutes, following 50m free dash with a 59.75 in the 100m backstroke

16: Missy Franklin, 15, continued to steal the show at the Austin Grand Prix in Texas, taking three victories within half an hour, over 200 IM, 200 back and 100 free

17: Matt Targett clocks 49.70sec win at Victoria titles Down Under as he makes his way back to top-flight racing after a time out for study

18: Alain Bernard confirms his cultural heritage when he reveals that he likes to drink a drop of wine in season with his meals

21: Aussie comeback king Geoff Huegill opts for a third Olympic campaign when he announces that he will race on to trials in 2012

22: In a tweak to Aussie selection rules designed to leave open a relay place for Libby Trickett at the Shanghai world titles in July, head coach Leigh Nugent and selectors leave one berth open after Aussie trials, to be filled at June s/c nationals

22: European champion Camille Lacourt, of Marseilles, clocks 53.54 over 100m back at the Nancy meet to keep Jeremy Stravius at bay by 0.24sec; Stravius then takes 200m free in 1:48.11; the two will share the world title 100m back in an historic final 

25: Therese Alshammar receives the Jerring Sports Achievement Award in Sweden

25: in a world-record analysis article, SwimNews lists the 1,500m freestyle and 200m medley as two of the four most vulnerable world long-course records in the wake of back-to-textile swim suit rules. Those two events would turn out to be the first (and only two to date) world records of the post-shiny suit era

26: Danila Izotov and Stanislav Donets, of Russia, announce that they are to train with the French programme that boasts Yannick Agnel and Camille Muffat and is run by coach Fabrice Pellerin at Nice

28: The £268 million London 2012 Olympic aquatics centre will need a substantial subsidy to stay open after the Games, say experts

28: The Tunisian Swimming Federation is seized when anti-Government protesters, including the parents of Olympic and world 1,500m freestyle champion Ousamma Mellouli, storm the offices and force staff to leave

29:  Australia sets aside a $2.5 million "war chest" to beat Britain at London 2012

29: Cash-strapped Greece says it cannot pay the bill so Med Games organisers move the event elsewhere

29: Eamon Sullivan reveals that he suffered a fractured heel during a training camp in Mexico

30: Sun Yang (CHN), the Denis Cotterell-trained Chinese ace of world distance swimming in 2010, laid down early season markers of 1:48.91 and 3:48.27 over 200m and 400m free at the Miami Super Challenge in Australia.

31: the day marks the first long-course training session for Federica Pellegrini under new coach Philippe Lucas

31: Ian Thorpe comeback rumours abound but the manager of 2000 and 2004 Olympic freestyle champion David Flaskas tells AAP: "Ian has been training a lot and training hard. He has been enjoying it, but it is a big step to the next level." Two days later, Thorpe would announce his comeback.

FEBRUARY

2: USA Swimming names coach Frank Busch (Tucson, Ariz.) as its National Team Director in the wake of Mark Schubert's departure under troubling circumstances

2: Aaron Peirsol (USA), one of the all-time greats of backstroke, retires 

2: Olympic superhero Michael Phelps takes the plunge into the games market with a cool challenge - Kinect's Push the Limit

4: The FINA Bureau votes against coach representation on the ruling committee in a move against the wishes of FINA President Julio Maglione

4: Comeback fever strikes the sport - Thorpe, Manaudou, Moses, Hansen, Crocker, Trickett, Evans and Klim among those wooed back to the race pool

6: Germany defeats Britain at the return duel in the Ruttenscheid Schwimmzentrum at Essen today, 240 to 195 points 

10: a week after Ian Thorpe announces his return to swimming his mentor first time round, Doug Frost, quit his job in Britain on the shortest of notice, with no warning, and returns to his native Australia (as Thorpe gets ready to head to … Abu Dhabi, in a sponsorship deal that masks his real destination - Switzerland and coach Gennadi Touretski)

10: A review by the Association of Chief Executives for Sport reports that the number of athletes or coaches serving on the governing boards of directors at international federation level is: none. The matter is raised by American and world associations representing coaches in a sport that continues to give no official voice and vote to their profession

11: Belinda Hocking falls just 0.34sec shy of Meagen Nay’s Australian record to win the 200m backstroke in 2:07.75 at NSW State Championships in Sydney; James Magnussen is forced to pull out of 100m free final when his house is burgled … things can only get better … and they do

12: At the NSW State Championships in Sydney, Australia-based Brit Ellen Gandy, 19, takes the 100m butterfly crown in a strong 58.23 a month out from her national selection trials for Shanghai world titles. She will go on to win silver over 200m in Shanghai.

13: The University of Calgary Swim Club in Canada appoints Greg Connell as Head Age Group/National Development coach to work with head coaches Jan Bidrman and Michael Blondal.

13: Brit Ellen Gandy raises the early 2011 world standard over 200m butterfly to a swift 2:05.90 for a second victory at NSW State Championships in Sydney, Australia

14: Michael Klim, 33, joins Huegill, Trickett and Thorpe on the comeback trail Down Under

15: USA Swimming clears coach Sean Hutchison of any wrongdoing in an inquiry that followed a false accusation of an inappropriate relationship with one of his post-graduate athletes

15: Libby Trickett leaves Sydney in a return to Brisbane in part to pursue a house project there in the midst of her comeback

15: GBR duel with Russia called off

17: An Aussie "media guru" says comeback crew of Ian Thorpe, Geoff Hueguill, Libby Trickett and Michael Klim could "easily pocket at least $500,000 apiece in added endorsements and appearances ahead of the London Olympics"

17: The FINA Bureau dropped two key officials from their list of head referees, including Valerijus Belovas, the man in charge for FINA when Fran Crippen (USA) died in a world cup 10km race off Dubai in October 2010

17: Confirming that he is to spend most of his time in Brazil for his London 2012 preparations, Cesar Cielo, Olympic dash emperor and world champion, reveals Pro-16 legacy plans aimed at serving Brazil well come a home Games in Rio in 2016

18: distance free legend Kieren Perkins will serve as athlete liaison to the Australian Olympic team bound for London 2012, Aussie blazers reveal; Perkins accepts honour with grace and talks of what it meant to him back before Barcelona 1992 and the first of his Olympic crowns to have a chat with the great Murray Rose

18: Dara Torres, 45 by the time London 2012 comes round, is not done yet, her next Olympic campaign - 28 years after her first - confirmed with the words: "It is a very fine line of trying to see where my limits are. If that starts to happen before the trials, I will most likely stop"

18: FINA renames 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup the Fran Crippen Memorial circuit for 2011 in the wake of the tragic death of the American swimmer on October 23 2010 … the Crippen family were not consulted and ask for their son's name to be removed from the title; 10km cup postponed until mid-April to allow time for Inquiry Task Force to report 

19: Olympic 200m champion Rebecca Soni sets meet record of 1:05.89 in the 100m breaststroke at the Missouri Grand Prix

20: Rebecca Soni takes down another meet record at the Missouri Grand Prix, on 2:23.27 in the 200m breaststroke

23: Ian Thorpe leaves Australia for a corporate commitment in Abu Dhabi, says he has found a coach and Greta-Garbo style tells the Aussie media that he wants to be left alone to get on with his comeback

26: Kosuke Kitajima clocks 57.34sec in 100m breaststroke at at Japan s/c nationals to set one of three national records; Daiya Seto on 4:04:28 400IM; Ryosuke Irie on 1:49.78 200 back

27: Kitajima completes breaststroke sweep at Japan s/c nationals, with 2:02.95 national record in the 200m before 26.68 dash win; his rival Suenaga quits the sport

28: Ian Thorpe linked to the man who will end up guiding his second coming: Alex-Popov mentor Gennadi Touretski; deal ends up being revealed on March 14