“My greatest opponent I think it’s been myself. I’ve enjoyed racing against who I would probably consider my two biggest rivals - Grant Hackett and Pieter van den Hoogenband” Ian told a press conference recently when he resigned from international championships.
Queers around the world will miss him. Let's take a look at his greatest moment in swimming. Do you remember the dramatic showdown between Ian, Pieter and Michael during the much anticipated swimming event of this century -- the 200M MEN FREESTYLE FINALS in Athens? Well, Ian finished first and created a new OR. Watch it on Youtube.
I remember as soon as the men's 200-meter freestyle finalists began filing onto the deck that night, a crowd that had been buzzing with anticipation unleashed an expectant roar. Fourth in line, Ian Thorpe walked into the sea of noise, looking unruffled even as the din turned up a notch. The Australian fans, after all, had brought drums. Thorpe betrayed no emotion walking to the starting block, betrayed nothing in the unrattled evenness of his form. Without hurrying his smooth stroke, he caught and passed his nemesis, Pieter van den Hoogenband of the Netherlands, in the final half-lap to win a gold medal denied him four years ago in Sydney. At the wall, Thorpe allowed himself to add a fist pump and a yell to the drumbeats. It was an unusual display for someone who usually handles success so mildly.
''This has been played on three continents in the lead-up to the Olympic Games and it became a big deal, but I wasn't focusing too much on that,'' Thorpe said, back to his reserved self minutes later. ''I really wanted to concentrate on what I wanted to do tonight, which was swim the race well. It's the only way I've been able to be successful in the past.''
It had been dubbed the race of the century -- perhaps easy to do when the century is only four years old -- and Thorpe rose to the occasion, befitting his role as swimmer of the century. His time of 1 minute 44.71 seconds was not fast by his herculean standards, but it did the trick. It held off van den Hoogenband, who finished in 1:45.23, and Michael Phelps, who swam his best time in the event and set an American record, 1:45.32.
Phelps also lost his chance to tie Mark Spitz's record of seven swimming gold medals in one Olympics. But for Phelps, another bronze medal to go with his previous bronze and gold was nothing to ruin the occasion. He wanted to be part of the race even though this is not close to his strongest event.
''How can I be disappointed?'' Phelps said. ''I swam in a field with the two fastest 200 freestylers of all time and I was right there with them. I'm extremely happy with that. It was fun. I had fun doing it.''
Van den Hoogenband was every bit as unruffled.
''To be beaten by one of the best in my sport, well, that's the way it is,'' he said.
The race was not as close as it might have been, although it took one of Thorpe's trademark last-lap surges to overtake van den Hoogenband, who beat him for the gold in this race in the last Olympics.
Van den Hoogenband went out strong and led through the first 150. Phelps trailed all the way but closed the gap near the end, prompting his coach, Bob Bowman, to say that he swam as fast as he could have.
Even Peirsol said he was glued to the 200 freestyle, though his race followed only a few minutes later. He was like the 11,000 or so other fans who had piled into the stadium to see a rare intersection of the top three men's swimmers.
Thorpe's victory cemented his legacy as the top middle-distance freestyler in history, no matter how many more medals he earns. It was his second victory here in the first three days, to go with one in the 400 freestyle.
Thorpe, 21, has occupied the prime seat in his sport for so long -- since he was a precocious 15-year-old with a smile the cameras loved -- that it is easy to overlook the work he has put into staying in it.
He lost this race to van den Hoogenband in Sydney and worked four years to take the title back. It was his only loss at that distance in the past eight years.
But to hear Thorpe tell it, it was not an emotional journey. He said he had put that loss behind him, chalked it up to not following his own strategy, and approached his next chance at the gold medal with a purely rational approach.
His celebration after the race hinted at something else. He did, however, greet van den Hoogenband with grace when they hugged across the lane lines.
''I said to him, 'I guess that makes it one-all, and I'd like to see you again in Beijing,''' Thorpe said.
Phelps, a 19-year-old whose dominance in the individual medley races and the 200 butterfly does not normally bring him into competition with Thorpe or van den Hoogenband, a sprinter, was the one who gave this race a new twist. The event was the biggest hurdle in his seven-gold-medal quest.
But all that took a back seat in this atmosphere. Everyone involved gave Phelps credit for trying, for taking on a challenge that seemed nearly impossible. Even Thorpe said he hoped Phelps did not suffer from a disappointing reaction to falling short of what Thorpe had said was an outlandish goal.
His teammates do not believe the defeat will rattle Phelps, who was back minutes after the medal ceremony and swam a semifinal of the 200 butterfly. It is a race he dominates, but he needed only to move on to the finals, which he did easily, qualifying second fastest.
Phelps is used to hectic meet schedules, but the burden at the Olympics is as much mental as it is physical.
Peirsol said: ''If anyone can handle it, he can. He can only do so much. He can only control what he's doing. He can win still win eight medals. Even if they're not all gold, that's incredible. That is the Spitzian feat of our time.''
Winning the 200 freestyle, as it turned out, was the Thorpean feat of our time.