Ian Thorpe
Ian Thorpe was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on October 13th, 1982 and is the Swimmer. At the age of 41, Ian Thorpe biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 41 years old, Ian Thorpe has this physical status:
In June 1997, two months before the Pan Pacific Championships, Thorpe required an appendix operation, which caused him to miss two weeks of training. Upon reaching Japan, Thorpe placed fourth in his heat of the 200 m freestyle with a new personal best time of 1 min 51.46 s. Thorpe's time was not enough to qualify for the final, but earned him selection in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay team. Along with teammates Michael Klim, Ian van der Wal and Hackett, Thorpe claimed silver, making him the youngest ever Pan Pacific medalist. 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. In October 1997, a few days before his fifteenth birthday, Thorpe competed in qualifying trials in Brisbane for the 1998 World Aquatics Championships in Perth. Thorpe gained selection for the world championships by finishing fourth and second in the 200 m and 400 m freestyle respectively. He set new personal bests in both events.
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. Thorpe was ranked fourth in the world before the 400 m final, which Hackett led from the outset. Hackett established a comfortable 2.29 s lead over Thorpe by the 300 m mark, and although Thorpe reduced the margin to 1.53 s at the 350 m mark, Hackett led until Thorpe passed him on the final stroke. Thorpe's time was the fourth fastest in history and made him the youngest ever male individual world champion, aged 15 years and 3 months.
As a result of the media attention generated by his win on home soil, Thorpe received multiple offers for television commercials and was often surrounded by autograph hunters. He became a high-profile supporter of the Children's Cancer Institute, after his sister Christina's future brother-in-law Michael Williams became gravely ill with cancer.
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's rise continued when the Australians arrived in Kuala Lumpur during September for the Commonwealth Games. Thorpe's first event was the 200 m freestyle, where he led throughout to record a time just one hundredth of a second outside Giorgio Lamberti's world record. He then combined with Klim, Kowalski and Matt Dunn in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay to break the world record of the Unified Team set in 1992 by 0.09 s. Thorpe's run ended when a personal best of 50.21 s in the 100 m freestyle was only sufficient for fourth place, but he returned to victory with the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay team. He claimed a fourth gold in the 400 m freestyle, setting another personal best, just 0.55 s slower than Kieren Perkins' 1994 mark.
Thorpe left school at the end of the year after completing Year 10. His decision caused concerns that concentrating on swimming alone could lead to burn out. Thorpe disagreed, pointing to his informal search for knowledge, stating that "Swimming is a small part of my life". His impact in the swimming community was acknowledged when he became the youngest male swimmer to be named as the Swimming World Swimmer of the Year.
Post-swimming career
Thorpe presented a two-part television documentary called Bullied on ABC Television, using hidden-camera footage to give a victim's-eye-view of bullying. It aired 14 March 2017. In 2021, Thorpe competed in Celebrity MasterChef Australia (series 2) and was fourth to be eliminated. During the series, the judges referred to Thorpe having written two cookbooks, "Cook For Your Life", published in 2011 and "Eat Well Now", released in 2016.