By this time, Thorpe's relationship with Frost was beginning to unravel. Thorpe had always insisted that his swimming was about enjoyment and improving himself in setting faster times, rather than victory or defeat. This contrasted with Frost, who had a more aggressive and combative mindset, often making bold public statements. Thorpe ignored Frost's advice and bulked up his upper body by a further 5 kg to 105 kg, making him the heaviest elite swimmer in history. His reasoning that the strength gains would outweigh any loss in flexibility raised concerns over his physiological strategy. On the first night in Manchester, Thorpe again lowered his 400 m mark by 0.09 s to 3 min 40.08 s, before anchoring the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay team to another gold. Prior to the 200 m final, Thorpe was seen arguing with Frost in the warm-up area. Thorpe won, but was unusually angry at having failed to lower his previous best, publicly stating that he "wasn't with it" and that he had "one of the worst warm-ups ever". Thorpe did manage to lower his personal best in the 100 m freestyle to 48.73 s en route to his fourth gold, and anchored the 4 × 200 m freestyle and 4 × 100 m medley relays to comfortable victories. When he collected a silver in his first international race in the 100 m backstroke with another personal best behind world champion Matt Welsh, he was forced to rebuff media comparisons to Spitz. He emphasised personal performance, stating "I think it's a limiting attitude to be competing against other people when you can be challenging yourself". Despite Thorpe's assertion that he could not match Spitz, Frost predicted that Thorpe could win nine golds at one Olympics. In spite of the media disappointment, Thorpe's six gold medals equalled the record set by Susie O'Neill, completing all in Games or World record time. As a result, he was awarded the honour of carrying the flag at the closing ceremony.