How sporting great Ian Thorpe finally made peace with himself
IAN Thorpe is in a happy place. And he doesn’t care who knows. The former swimming great tells BW Magazine life has never been better — both personally and professionally — as he prepares to celebrate his upcoming 36th birthday.
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TAKE a look at Ian Thorpe’s Instagram account and you’d think he’s living the high life. Images taken around the world show the Olympic swimming champion posing happily on the Greek island Mykonos, on a snowy mountaintop outside Queenstown in New Zealand and lazing in a pool in sunny Ubud on Bali.
The reel is a happy reflection of where the 35-year-old is today — content with partner of three years Ryan Channing and in a fulfilling post-swim career.
“My Instagram account looks like I’m constantly travelling the world, but I do work hard,” he tells BW Magazine, laughing as he defends himself.
“I’ve had 11 international trips this year and only one has been a holiday.
But I am really happy with what I’m doing and the quality of things I’m doing. Things are going well for me, I’m happy, I’m in a good place.”
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As he reclines in a chair at The Star’s Sokyo Lounge, Thorpe beams his trademark wide smile and it’s clear he is happy and confident as he nears his 36th birthday next month.
His friendly, easygoing nature can make it easy to forget Thorpe is a living Australian legend, that he was the youngest Australian swimmer to make the national swim team and won three gold medals at the Sydney Olympics, all before he was old enough to vote or drink a beer.
It also hides the years he struggled with depression and alcohol abuse.
Thorpe has an easy way of tackling difficult subjects.
He is open and honest when discussing the struggles he has faced, talking about the depression and anxiety that started for him as a teenager, his struggles coming out publicly as a gay man and the challenge of finding a career after he hung up his goggles.
He has also been honest about the very public turn his struggles took when he checked into rehab after being found disoriented on a Sydney street in 2014.
Things are going well for me, I’m happy, I’m in a good place
Last year, he signed on as a patron of leading online mental health organisation for young people, ReachOut.
“Everyone needs their own time on these things,” he says of his decision to come out during a 2014 interview with television host Michael Parkinson.
“For me, I hadn’t been comfortable with myself to be able to come out until that point in time.
“I was asked for the first time about my sexuality when I was 15. I remember being on a plane when I was about to turn 18 and for the first time it was going to be published that I was accused of being gay.
“And this is the problem — we’re ‘accusing’ people. It’s a terrible way to phrase it, but for me that’s how it felt.
“And it was hard. But now that I have (come out) I wish that I had done it sooner and been comfortable to do it sooner.
“Someone once told me, ‘You don’t just come out for yourself, you come out to make it easier for others,’ and when I heard it phrased that way, I felt that is the only thing that would have made me come out sooner.
“I suffered depression since I was in my teens.
“And it got worse when I stopped swimming the first time. I had the very worst things happen within the space of a couple for weeks. I retired from the sport.
“About two weeks later I was accused of doping, then I had to try to transition into a life I was unprepared for. In 2006 when that happened I actually did go into a pretty big depression so I wasn’t in a good way.
“Coming out of a career and knowing what you want to do and knowing how to ‘detrain’ yourself helps.
“When you stop (training), the last thing you want to do is keep training, you want a bit of respite from that, but you have to do it in steps, not all at once.”
Now, on the eve of his 36th birthday, Thorpe has managed to do what was once easier said than done for him — transition from a professional sporting career into one outside the pool. He has been sponsored since he was a teen, managing these commitments while attending high school and completing gruelling training sessions in the pool.
Sponsors and brand ambassadorial roles have formed a major part of his professional career both before and after his Olympic wins.
In two weeks, he will celebrate his birthday on October 13 at an Everest race day function at Royal Randwick hosted by The Star casino and entertainment complex, for whom he is an ambassador.
The second running of The Everest, the world’s richest turf race with prizemoney of $13 million, will be one of the biggest events, sporting or otherwise, on the calendar this year.
Thorpe’s involvement with The Star is a typical merging of his private and professional lives. He is also an ambassador for the Invictus Games, the global sporting event for wounded, injured and ill military veterans founded by Prince Harry and set to hit Sydney from October 20.
“How lucky am I, after going to the Everest function and being there with some of the other Star ambassadors like Jen Hawkins and Emma Freedman, who always has great race tips because her uncle is horse trainer Anthony Freedman, we’ll be able to come back to The Star, which is the perfect place to play and I’ll spend my birthday night here.”
With the benefit of hindsight, Thorpe has turned his attention to helping athletes transition into fulfilling post-sport careers.
“I think we can do a lot better for athletes,” he says.
“I really like mentoring, I mentor a few athletes and think it would be a really good program to have in place, with athletes mentoring each other and sharing their struggles of being in a high-pressure situation. That’s one of the things I would like to see happen.
“I have just started working with the AIS to get this right.
“They will do a program to benefit all sports in the country and look into athlete wellbeing. The Australian government wants, through the Sports Commission, to make athlete wellbeing priority number one.”
Thorpe recalls “a very normal, ordinary suburban upbringing” growing up in Milperra in Sydney’s southwest with his older sister, Christina.
The academically gifted Thorpe was named dux in each of his high school years and he became adept at managing his time between studies and swim training.
The year he became swimming’s youngest world record holder in history — at the age of 15 — he was completing his School Certificate, which meant his HSC year would have fallen in 2000 — the same year as the Sydney Olympics.
As a result Thorpe finished his schooling at the end of year 10 to allow him to concentrate on his swimming career. “I thought I was going to be too young for the Sydney Olympics, I thought maybe the next Olympics would be a better tie for me,” Thorpe says. “I didn’t think I would be good enough in time for the Sydney Games. I was looking at the rest of the team and they were in their mid- to late 20s, I was that much younger. Most of them were 10 years older than me.
“The part about swimming that I wasn’t prepared for was the level that my profile would grow, because that hadn’t happened for a swimmer before. It didn’t just happen here, it happened around the world — I was mobbed in Japan. And I wasn’t prepared for that.
“It’s something I have become more comfortable with as I’ve grown older, and since coming out as well.”
Before he wraps up his chat with BW Magazine, a funny thought occurs to Thorpe — he has been alive longer now as a gold medallist than he was before he won his first medals.
“It’s the 18th anniversary of my first and second Olympic gold medals today,” he says, recalling his wins at the Sydney Olympic Games on September 19, 2000, for the 100m freestyle and 4x100m relay.
“This is the first year I have actually been an Olympic champion longer than I have not because I was 17 when I won them.
“That’s kind of a weird thought.”