Ian Thorpe
Ian Thorpe
Ian James Thorpe, OAMis an Australian swimmer who specialises in freestyle, but also competes in backstroke and the individual medley. He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, and with three gold and two silver medals, was the most successful athlete at the 2000 Summer Olympics. At the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. In total, Thorpe has won eleven World Championship golds,...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionSwimmer
Date of Birth13 October 1982
CitySydney, Australia
CountryAustralia
It's a hot 100 field at the moment. It's going to be a good Commonwealth Games . . . a very, very tough race.
It's not out of the question, but at the moment I intend to retire in Beijing.
It's going to be a tough Olympics program for Michael.
(It's for) core stability. The same kind of rotation as well. It's a little bit of variation.
It's getting close to being two years away, so it's close, and it's exciting already,
I've have never taken so many tablets in my life as what I have in the past few weeks. I've just been fatigued and drained. Basically for the last three weeks I've been watching TV and sleeping.
After that, it was then that I wanted to be back and competing,
When I started this I wanted to get back in the pool, I wanted to race and I wanted to go to the Olympics. I still want to do all of those things.
I'm more comfortable knowing that, chances are, I'm going to fail at this. I've become comfortable with that.
In the end it was the only decision I could come to. I would have been so far off my best it was not worthwhile. I'm not where I need to be.
I'm getting better and it's actually the best I've felt in a while. I think the antibiotics are starting to work.
It was difficult coming to terms with not being able to compete but in the end it was the only decision I could come to.
I think now I'll probably take a few days off and enjoy the competition and then sit down with a few people and work out what is next, work out what the next preparation will be and what competition will be next.
When I go out and race, I'm not trying to beat opponents, I'm trying to beat what I have done ... to beat myself, basically. People find that hard to believe because we've had such a bias to always strive to win things. If you win something and you haven't put everything into it, you haven't actually achieved anything at all. When you've had to work hard for something and you've got the best you can out of yourself on that given day, that's where you get satisfaction from.