Australian Olympic legend Ian Thorpe is predicting a highly successful Rio Games for the nation and potentially a far better outcome in the pool than in London four years ago.
Former swimmer Thorpe, who won five gold medals across the 2000 and 2004 Games, is in the process of finalising how he'll be involved at this year's Olympics as he ponders a team or individual role with the Australian swim team.
But on the outside looking in, he likes what he sees.
"Looking at the results from around the world at this stage and we're around three months out from the Olympics and we have great athletes," Thorpe told AAP on Monday.
"I think that we have a great Australian team, not just a swim team, but athletes across a number of sports and I think we will have a highly successful Games.
He has high hopes of the swimming team performing better than in 2012, when it won just one relay gold medal and the culture within the group was widely criticised.
He said the talent of the 2016 squad was the main reason for his optimism.
"If you look at the 100 metres freestyle which is one of the blue riband events that we have around the world for swimming, we have the No.1 ranked athlete in both the men's and the women's," Thorpe said.
"In the men's we have Cameron McEvoy who has swum incredibly well over the past 12 months especially at our Olympic trials just recently.
"He will go into the Olympics as the favourite and then if we look at the women's, we have Cate Campbell and her sister Bronte who are the number one, number two swimmers in the world.
"Cate has shown dominance over the past four years in this event, only being pipped by her sister recently at the world championships.
Thorpe also liked the look of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay team which won in London, Mack Horton in the 400 and 1500 metres freestyle, breaststroker Mitch Larkin and backstroker Emily Seebohm.
"The (rest of the) world is still about to have their selection trials and times will move coming into the Games, but I think we have a very good shot and I think it will be a very different result to what we had in London," he said.
Thorpe, who is fronting an Optus Small and Medium Business campaign which will send four Australian small businesses to the Olympics, said there was similarities between pursuing Olympic glory and running a small business.
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