The five-times Olympic gold medalist Ian Thorpe has failed for a second day to reach a final at the Fina World Cup meeting in Beijing.

The Australian, who came out of retirement earlier this year in a bid to reach next year's Games in London, was 13th fastest of 27 entrants in the 100m butterfly heats with a time of 54.35sec.

That left him more than two seconds adrift of the fastest qualifier, Japan's Kosuke Hagino, in 52.13sec.

On Tuesday the 29-year-old fell short of reaching the finals in the 100m freestyle and 100m individual medley events and will need to find significant improvement if he is to qualify for London 2012 at the trials in March.