Hero Profile: Ian Thorpe

The Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe was one of the greatest swimmers the world has ever seen. His record speaks for itself. In his career spanning over 10 years he won five Olympic gold medals, 11 world titles and set 13 long-course records and 23 overall. In 2001 he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship.

Unusually for an elite athlete, Ian generally had a quiet and mild-mannered demeanor. In the rare times that he did not win, he appeared grateful in defeat. He appeared to handle the fame and adulation with admirable style. After he was controversially disqualified for false starting at the 2004 Olympic swimming trials there was not a great amount of complaints from him. He had accepted his own error. Thankfully for the swimming world we was later given a place in Athens when third placed Craig Stevens generously pulled out, and he went on to win the gold medal.

When he received a bonus of $25,000 for setting the first world record in the Sydney Olympic pool in 1999, he donated the money to children's cancer research and a youth crisis program, in honor of a childhood friend who had suffered non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The following year he established his own Trust, the Ian Thorpe's Foundation for Youth. The charity raises funds for research into childhood illnesses and sponsors a school in Beijing for orphaned children with disabilities. It also works with The Fred Hollows Foundation to improve health standards and living conditions in Australian aboriginal communities.