FORGET about competing for gold - it was popping the question to girlfriend Candice Alley that got the butterflies swimming in Olympic distance hero Grant Hackett’s stomach.After an 18-month courtship, the champion and his singing sweetheart have announced they will race to the altar after the world swimming championships next March.

Hackett, 26, presented the 23-year-old performer with a 4.2 carat princess-cut diamond and platinum ring during a balloon ride on her birthday last month.

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SWIMMING superstar Grant Hackett is engaged to singer Candice Alley, New Idea magazine reports in its latest edition.

The Olympic and world champion swimmer presented the 23-year-old performer with a 4.2 carat princess-cut diamond and platinum ring during a hot air balloon ride on her birthday last month.

The couple met at the 2004 Telstra Swimmer of the Year Awards, where the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter was performing.

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Grant Hackett believes attitude rather than illness and injury is the only hurdle preventing five-time Olympic champion Ian Thorpe from recapturing his best.

Thorpe has not swum at a major international meet since the Athens Olympics and, after taking 2005 off, had his Commonwealth Games dreams shattered by illness.

However, Hackett has backed Thorpe to regain his best, but on a proviso.

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SWIMMING superstar Grant Hackett was joined by politicians, fellow sports stars and a parade of school students today for the official launch of the FINA World Swimming Championships.

Melbourne will again take sport’s centre stage next March when the biggest aquatic event in the world takes over the city.More than 2000 athletes will compete in five disciplines at Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre and St Kilda beach from March 17-April 1.

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ONE lucky Herald Sun reader has the chance to name the penguin mascot of the FINA World Swimming Championships.

The winner and a friend will watch Grant Hackett train from poolside and meet the swimming legend in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A Speedo prize pack and a family pass to the Phillip Island Nature Park are also part of the prize

DUAL Olympic champion Grant Hackett is seamlessly reclaiming the distance throne he temporarily abdicated when he underwent shoulder surgery last December.

In only his second competition since the operation that ruled him out of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Hackett set the fastest 800m freestyle time in the world in the past year in a short course pool.

At the Victorian short course titles at the weekend, the 25-year-old distance king demonstrated that he was right on track to defend his three world titles in Melbourne next March.

Swimming virtually on his own, he set a time of 7min 40.67sec, faster than Russian Yuri Prilukov’s winning time at the world championships in Shanghai in April (7:41.94).

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