NSW Champions of Sport – Ian Thorpe OAM

Join us as we celebrate the past winners of the NSW Sports Awards spanning over 20 years of sporting excellence and achievement – as we countdown to the inaugural NSW Champions of Sport, where, for the first time, the induction of new entrants into the NSW Hall of Champions will be combined with the NSW Sports Awards in one gala ceremony. 

In the lead up to the event, we will look back to our past crowned NSW Athlete of the Year and NSW Athlete of the Year with a Disability winners as they share their great joys and triumphs as well as life post their ‘dream year’ with successes both on and off the field.

Sport:  Swimming
NSW Athlete of the Year: 1998, 1999 and 2001

Ian Thorpe will forever be embedded in the Australian public’s memory as an icon of swimming internationally and the only Australian Olympian, to date, to win five gold medals.

At the age of 12, Ian competed in 13 events at a state meet, and set under-age NSW records in all of them. Fully grown, he stood a large frame, with an arm span of 190cm and size 17 feet, which would put him in good stead for an illustrious swimming career.

At just 14 years of age, Thorpe took the nation by storm when he won the 1998 world 400m freestyle title in Perth – becoming the youngest world champion in history. In the same year he won four Commonwealth Games gold medals in freestyle events in Kuala Lumpur and was subsequently named NSW Athlete of the Year for the first of three times.

By the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, he had broken 10 world records - four of them in four days at the 1999 Pan Pacific titles.

On the first night of Olympic competition in Sydney Thorpe won the 400m freestyle, beating his own world record. He then combined with Michael Klim, Chris Fydler and Ashley Callus to inflict the United States’ first defeat in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay for 36 years in another world record.

Hungry and eager to redeem himself from the loss to Dutchman, Pieter van den Hoogenband, in the individual 200m freestyle, Thorpe alongside Bill Kirby, Klim, and Todd Pearson rose to the occasion and earned Australia another world relay race record, winning the 4 x 200m.   

Between the Sydney and Athens 2004 Games, Thorpe split with his veteran coach Doug Frost and joined Tracey Menzies. He almost lost the chance to defend his 400m title in Athens when he toppled from his starting block in the Olympic trials - but survived and went on to win the Olympic final.

He then gave the Australian public another memorable moment when he won the 200m freestyle - billed as ‘the race of the century’ against Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband and American Michael Phelps – to claim his fifth Olympic gold medal.

In 2006 Thorpe announced his withdrawal from the Commonwealth Games due to a bout of bronchitis, which had stopped him from training. Soon after he announced his retirement from the sport all-together.

In 2012, Thorpe made a brief comeback in an effort to qualify for the London Olympics, but just missed out, finishing fifth in the final qualifying round.

In 2008 Ian Thorpe was inducted into the NSW Hall of Champions and at the inaugural NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony will become the 21st inductee to be elevated to the position of Legend Status, joining a distinguished list of Legends including Dawn Fraser, Donald Bradman, Betty Cuthbert, Ken Rosewall and Louise Sauvage.

The cream of NSW Sports stars from both past and present will be celebrated at the NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony to be held at Rosehill Gardens on Monday 27 November 2017.

For more information on the NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony and to secure your seat visit: www.sportnsw.com.au/2017ChampionsofSport