By Masato Inoue
Ian Thorpe is an Australia swimmer who specialises in
freestyle. First, he was born in Sydney, New South Wales, October 1982. The
five-year-old Thorpe followed his elder sister into the pool. 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. After that, Thorpe
gradually overcame the ailment and progressed to the captaincy of New South
Wales for the Australian Primary Schools championships in 1994. At 14 years and
5 months, Thorpe became the youngest ever male to be selected for the
Australian team, and he was a contestant in all twelve events, winning ten
individual gold and two bronze medals. Next in 1998 World Aquatics
Championship, Thorpe’s time was fourth fastest in history and made him the
youngest ever male individual work champion, aged 15 years and 3 months. After
the Athens Olympics, Thorpe took a year away from swimming, and he announced
his retirement in November 2006. From early 2011, Thorpe returned to swimming,
and he is targeting qualification for the 2013 World Championship in Barcelona.
He is still a good swimmer.
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