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
I'm excited about swimming the event because I won my first Olympic gold medal in the event,
People ask me 'what was going through your mind in the race?' and I don't know. I try and ...let my body do what it knows
I've enjoyed training again, I've enjoyed pushing myself in the pool and I'll keep on swimming until I feel I cannot get any more out of myself.
Remember to do the things you enjoy away from swimming, regularly.
I swam the race like I trained to swim it. It is not mathematical. I just let my body do it. It is a lot easier if you let your body do what it is trained for.
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.
I am not going to allow myself not to perform well just because I don't feel well. I am bulletproof to the extent that a lot of things can be thrown at me, but it's about how much I am prepared to let them affect me
There is water in every lane, so it is OK.
For myself, losing is not coming second. It's getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I've been in
I'm looking forward to actually racing again. It's been such a long time since I've raced now, but I do look forward to my life after swimming as well.
It was tough but I was able to produce a pretty good performance and I'm ecstatic about the result.
I wasn't happy with it at all. I thought I would go faster than what I did last night (in the semi-finals) so it's pretty disappointing. I didn't swim as fast as I did last night. It's as simple as that.
Having time away, it reignites that passion and that fire that you have. And I have that back and I'm looking forward to the next four years,
I don't know which events are really going to be right for me at the moment. I've got to work that out and I'm not going to rush it.