Ian James Thorpe, (born 13 October 1982) is an Australian retired swimmer who specialized in freestyle, but also competed in backstroke and the individual medley.
He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, along with fellow swimmer Emma McKeon. With three gold and two silver medals, Thorpe was the most successful athlete at the 2000 Summer Olympics, held in his hometown of Sydney.
At the age of 14, Thorpe became the youngest male ever to represent Australia, and his victory in the 400-metre freestyle at the 1998 Perth World Championships made him the youngest-ever individual male World Champion.
After that victory, Thorpe dominated the 400 m freestyle, winning the event at every Olympic, World, Commonwealth and Pan Pacific Swimming Championships until his break after the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
At the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. Aside from 13 individual long-course world records, Thorpe anchored the Australian relay teams, numbering the victories in the 4 × 100 m and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relays in Sydney among his five relay world record. His wins in the 200 m and 400 m and his bronze in the 100 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics made him the only male to have won medals in the 100–200–400 combination.
More information: Instagram-Ian Thorpe
He acquired the nickname Thorpedo because of his speed in swimming.
Thorpe announced his retirement from competitive swimming in November 2006, citing waning motivation; he made a brief comeback in 2011 and 2012.
In total, Thorpe has won eleven World Championship gold medals; this is the fifth-highest number of gold medals won by any male swimmer.
Thorpe was the first person to have been named Swimming World Swimmer of the Year four times, and was the Australian Swimmer of the Year from 1999 to 2003. His athletic achievements made him one of Australia's most popular athletes, and he was recognized as the Young Australian of the Year in 2000.
Born in Sydney, Thorpe grew up in the suburb of Milperra and hailed from a sporting family. His father Ken was a promising cricketer at junior level, representing Bankstown District Cricket Club in Sydney's district competition.
As a young child, Thorpe was sidelined by an allergy to chlorine. As a result, he did not swim in his first race until a school carnival at the age of seven. The allergy forced Thorpe to swim with his head out of the water; despite this ungainly technique, he won the race, primarily because of his significant size advantage.
Frost knew that Thorpe had no realistic chance of making the top two in any event, which would have meant Olympic selection at only 13 years and six months.
Aged 14 years and 5 months, Thorpe became the 463rd and youngest ever male to be selected for the Australian team, surpassing John Konrads' record by one month.
In his first individual final at international level, Thorpe was fifth at the 300 m mark, but fought back to claim silver in the 400 m freestyle behind Hackett in a time of 3 min 49.64 s. His finishing burst was to become a trademark, and his time would have been enough to win silver at the Atlanta Olympics.
Thorpe's first international appearance in his home country, at the 1998 World Championships in Perth, began with the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Swimming the third leg after Klim and Hackett, Thorpe broke away from 200 m butterfly Olympic champion Tom Malchow to set a split time of 1 min 47.67 s, just 0.26 seconds slower than Klim's winning time in the 200 m final.
By the end of Thorpe's leg, the Australians were two seconds ahead of the world record pace, and three seconds ahead of the Americans, having extended the lead by two body lengths. Although anchorman Kowalski finished outside the world record, it was the first time that Australia had won the event at the global level since 1956.
More information: Twitter-Ian Thorpe
Thorpe's next competition was in March at the Australian Championships in Melbourne, which were selection trials for the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.
Thorpe's improvement continued when he defeated Klim in the 200 m freestyle in 1 min 47.24 s, faster than Klim's winning time at the World Championship two months earlier.
Thorpe's time was a Commonwealth record and with it, he secured his first national title. He then claimed the 400 m freestyle title from Hackett and clocked 50.36 s in the 100 m freestyle. His time earned silver in his first 100 m race at the national level, gaining him Commonwealth selection in three individual events.
Thorpe proceeded to the Olympic selection trials at Sydney Olympic Park in May 2000. He again broke his 400 m world record on the first night of racing, lowering it to 3 min 41.33 s to earn his first Olympic selection. The following day, he lowered his 200 m world record to 1 min 45.69 s in the semi-finals, before lowering it again to 1 min 45.51 s in the final. His attempt to secure a third individual berth failed after he finished fourth in the final of the 100 m and withdrew from the 1500 m.
Entering the Olympics, the Australian public expected Thorpe to deliver multiple world records and gold medals as a formality; Sydney's Daily Telegraph posted a front-page spread headlined Invincible.
With the 2001 Australian Championships held in Hobart in March, Thorpe added the 800 m freestyle to his repertoire, after FINA had added the event for the 2001 World Aquatics Championships.
Thorpe's success has been attributed to his work ethic, mental strength, powerful kick, ability to accelerate, and a physiology suited to swimming.
More information: Olympics
I wanted to race and I wanted to go to the Olympics.
I still want to do all of those things.
No comments:
Post a Comment