Ian Thorpe: The Swimmer Page #3

So why are you here

in Switzerland?

Um, because of the coach.

Simple as that.

If you can manage the balance,

you'll do minimal strokes.

Gennadi's a Russian-Australian...

..who is, I think, probably...

Well, I think he is the best sprint

coach in the world.

When you put yourself on a wave,

like to surfing...

Yep.

To catch this,

you must relax your hand

and put yourself on the wave.

Oh, I'm competitive.

I won't let anyone beat me

in training anymore.

I've become very competitive.

I'll do a set and Gennadi

will bring in,

like, rounds of swimmers

to try and beat me.

It'll be, like, bring in,

you know, some fresh youngster

that'll try and race against me.

Which, you know, this has been good

for me to get back,

you know, feeling competitive.

Sport is not training.

Sport is racing.

And a lot of people say,

'You must train hard,

you must do this,

you must do this.'

You must race well,

but what you need to do for this,

it's your own business.

What do you think?

Perhaps the best swimming

isn't done in racing.

When I've been here,

it's the first time I've felt like

I'm the best swimmer in the world

again,

and it's, like, yeah, ok, so maybe

that should be a fleeting thought,

because you aren't training

like that yet, so...

But, you know,

I did feel like that.

It was, like, 'Hmm... This is

all becoming very interesting.'

Um...

Why do you feel like that?

Because, potentially, I am.

It's how I used to feel.

So it was kind of crazy and...

You know, so now there's a balance

between feeling that way

and also then being able to train to

justify feeling like that.

How are you feeling now

on a personal level?

For most of the time,

I feel what it was like to be

and to act like an athlete.

It freaks everyone else out

that I can not speak to people

for months.

I don't want to hear small talk.

I don't have time for it.

I mean, you have to,

all of a sudden,

become pretty much the most selfish

people on the planet

to do this.

You just suck everyone's

energy out of them

just for your performance,

and you have to.

No, no.

Ooh!

Ooh.

And, you know, I'm enjoying,

you know,

the lifestyle of training.

Thank you.

How much?

Where is it?

This is the difference

between now and four years ago.

I wasn't enjoying it then.

I'm actually going to discontinue my

professional swimming career.

It was a tough decision,

but one that I'm very pleased

that I've made,

and I've been working towards

this decision for quite some time.

You know,

if kids ask their parents,

'Why isn't Thorpey swimming?'

I want them to say,

'Because he's done everything

he wanted to do in this sport.'

My refusal to continue to swim

was more of a reflection

around that ownership of me

and me not being able

to live my life how I wanted to.

When I decided to stop, you know, I

was really happy with that.

I was really pleased that

I'd been able to step away

from something that, you know,

was really making me miserable.

I realised that there were

so many other things out there

and I was restricting myself

to one thing.

Waking up to the endless kind

of opportunity and possibility.

Being able to dance,

that's what I'd like to have.

I didn't want anything to do with

the sport whatsoever,

I didn't watch it,

didn't really socialise with

most of the swimmers,

and spent my time avoiding it.

You know, I also lived in a place

where people didn't know

what I did.

It was nice to forget about it

for a while.

It's huge going from doing

the entire training thing

to being able to do

whatever you want.

I used to do between 30 and 40 hours

of training a week,

what's normal.

And someone'll go,

'Oh, I do 5 x 20 minutes a week,'

and so you go,

'It doesn't seem like much.

Oh, yeah, I'll start doing that

or maybe a little bit more,'

so you do that just to stay fit,

and you go, 'Well,

this isn't keeping me fit.'

Even your perception of what a

serving size of a meal should be,

it's so out of whack

because of what you've been eating

and how you've been

trying to feel yourself,

you just can't get your head around

it.

The allegations

surfaced in a French newspaper

that last May,

abnormal testosterone levels

were found

in Ian Thorpe's sample.

My results

were basically leaked.

I had an irregular reading,

so the test's still negative,

and, basically,

it was reported that, you know,

I'd returned a positive sample.

Retired swimming champ Ian

Thorpe

is reportedly being bailed out

by Westpac boss Gail Kelly

after being hit hard

by the Global Financial Crisis.

After quitting

lucrative sponsorships

to focus on university studies,

the Olympic legend was forced

to admit to a cashflow problem.

When you compete

as an elite athlete,

you expect to be the best

at everything.

You expect it of yourself.

As things became

a little bit more mundane,

you know, I was down,

and then, you know, realised,

'I'm feeling down a lot.'

Um, you know,

I call it 'the dark times',

but it's, uh...

Looking back, it's kind of having

these momentary periods

of depression.

What do you have on your

business card these days?

Um... unemployed.

Unemployed?

Yep.

You seem to be pretty busy.

Yeah, I am.

So is Ian wishing he was

competing at the Games

now he is in Beijing?

I'm being asked that question

so many times

that I'm starting to think,

'Maybe I should,

because everyone else thinks

that I should,' so...

But, you know, I'm happy

being here as a supporter.

Ian, go away.

In having some time away

and realising that I can do

a lot of other things,

I realised that

I don't feel as though

I should shut out

this side of my life,

the swimming side of what I do.

The swimming world

is set to welcome back

one of the greatest of all time.

Ian Thorpe is back

and he'll swim

the 100m individual medley

here in Singapore tomorrow,

the butterfly on Saturday...

I have to kind of remind myself,

I'm the guy who hasn't swum

for five years.

I forget it from time to time

and I think some other people here

might forget that as well.

This is kind of the starting point

and it will be good that I finally

have an opportunity to race.

It's a day before his first

competition in six years.

It's like

the first day of school.

2,099 days since I last raced.

It's a long...

Who counted that?

Someone that's quite strange.

How hard are you on yourself

at the moment?

Oh, look, I'm very hard on myself,

but, you know, I'm fair.

I mean,

do you think about the guys

that you've gotta beat?

It's actually

the other way around.

They have to beat me,

not me beat them.

I suppose with his swimming,

he's just here really

opening the first door

to the passageway of competition.

Really, it's about competing,

not about specificity here,

and he'll swim freestyle

when he's ready.

What will be

the overriding emotion

when you stand up

behind those blocks tomorrow

for the first time in a

competitive race for five years.

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