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IAN THORPE may be forced to delay his long-awaited return to competition yet again as he recovers from a broken hand.

Thorpe was forced to withdraw from last month’s Commonwealth Games in Melbourne because of glandular fever and was just returning to full training when he broke a bone in his right hand in a fall at his Sydney home 10 days ago.

He had a screw inserted in the bone in a simple operation last Thursday but has been advised not to swim until the wound has healed and there is no danger of infection.

He expects to be back in the water next week but this further disruption to his preparation has placed in doubt his nominated return to international competition at the Mare Nostrum meet in Monte Carlo from June 3-4.

National head coach Alan Thompson said they were considering an alternate plan to skip the first two rounds of the three-meet Mediterranean series, which would give Thorpe another week of training before the Barcelona meet from June 10-11.

He would then return to Australia via the United States, where he would contest the annual grand prix meet in Santa Clara, California, on June 22.

Coincidentally, Thorpe is in the process of buying a house in Los Angeles to serve as a US base as he intends to spend more time racing and training there in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“He’s keen to race, he’s champing at the bit,” Thorpe’s manager David Flaskas said yesterday.

Thompson will meet Thorpe, his coach Tracey Menzies, and national youth coach Leigh Nugent tomorrow to work out a new competition plan.

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Thompson said he was also eager to bring Thorpe back into the fold for the next national team training camp which will follow the Telstra Grand Prix meet in Brisbane from May 12-14, where fellow Olympic champion Grant Hackett will make his return from shoulder surgery.

By the time Thorpe, 23, races in June he will have been out of international competition for almost two years, since the Athens Olympics in August, 2004.

But Thompson does not doubt that Thorpe can still return to the peak of his sport.

“I am not overly concerned about the glandular fever he has had, the Epstein Bar virus shows up in most of our kids at some stage of their careers,” he said. “It was unlucky that he got sick coming into the Commonwealth Games and this is just another hiccup.”

A 26-strong Australia team, including world record-holders Leisel Jones and Libby Lenton, and Olympic champion Jodie Henry, will contest the Mare Nostrum series.

World 50m breaststroke champion Jade Edmistone and Olympic 50m freestyle finalist Michelle Engelsman have withdrawn from the team to concentrate on settling into new training situations.

Both are leaving their squads to return to former coaches.

Edmistone and her new husband, fellow swimmer Andrew Richards, have left the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra and will settle in Brisbane, where they will train with her former coach, Brant Best.

Engelsman is returning to Florida to work with the Race Club, a sprint-orientated program initiated by dual Olympic 50m freestyle champion Gary Hall.