MONACO - Five-time Australian Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe said he was relishing being back in the pool five years after quitting competition.

Thorpe, 28, recognizes that next year's London Games will be his Olympic hurrah, but says he will seize the moment as he looks to get back to the form which made him his country's most medaled Olympian.

"It's really nice to be swimming again and to enjoy the life of an athlete. I think I forgot what it's like to do this and I didn't appreciate that so few people get to enjoy this," said Thorpe, attending the final stage of the Mare Nostrum circuit at Monaco as an onlooker rather than a competitor.