Thorpe's Dolphin Thunder From Down Under 25 Years Ago This Week: 3 Days, 3 World Records
A quarter of a century ago this week, Ian Thorpe was busy setting a World record a day for three days at Olympic Trials. Plus, our memory of Act 1, Scene 1 at Sydney 2000; and our celebration of his career when he retired in 2006
By the time Ian Thorpe rested his head this day, May 14, twenty five years ago, he had celebrated two World records at the Australian Olympic Trials in the Homebush pool that would host the Sydney 2000 Games later that stellar season.
On May 13, 2000, Thorpe - 17 and two years beyond the moment at Perth 1998 World Championships at which the then 15-year-old became the youngest male global swimming champion in history - clocked 3mins 41.33sec to win the 400m freestyle.
The time shaved precisely half a second off the 3:41.83 victory the year before at the Pan Pacific Championships in the same city when he was 16 that took an axe to the 3:43.80 at which fellow Australian and the 1992 and 1996 Olympic 1500m free champion Kieren Perkins had set the World record for the global crown in Rome back in 1994.
The changing of the guard was being well and truly solidified in Sydney in May a quarter of a century ago. Thorpe followed up his 400m record with a 1:45.69 global high bar in his semi-final of the 200m freestyle. That marked his third World record over four lengths since his 1:46.34 win at Pan Pacific in 1999, inside the mark set earlier that year by the other Australian forcing that change of guard: Grant Hackett. He had shaved 0.02sec off the 1989 standard of the long-lasting 1:46.69 set by Italian Giorgio Lamberti for gold at a home European Championships in Rome.
As Hackett raced towards toppling Perkins over 1500m at home and at the Olympics in 2000, Thorpe was starting to own 200-400m zone.
On May 15, 2000, he chopped a further 0.18sec off the global 200m mark with a 1:45.51 victory at trials and was tipped and the middle-distance man to beat at a home Games.
The Eindhoven Express, Pieter Van Den Hoogenband, would have something to say about that at Sydney 2000, but after the Dutchman's stunning intervention for the 100-200m Olympic golden double, Thorpe would never be beaten again and remains to this day the fastest man to ever swim the 200m in a textile suit, albeit a bodysuit cut of the shape banned for men, with the shiny suits of 2008-2009, since 2010.
Here's how the 200m and 400m World records have flowed since Thorpe's heyday. The shiny suits snubbed out the different swimming that might have been the official record of the sport but has become the shadow of what might have been. That includes Thorpe's last 400m record, from 2002, at 3:40.08, which, had it not been for Germany's Paul Biedermann's shiny suit stands of Rome 2009, would have been the longest surviving men's World record in history, at 8323 days, or 22 years, 9 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, when Lukas Märtens, also of Germany, became the first man to race inside 3:40 a month ago this week in Stockholm:
Craig Lord
200m Freestyle - World Record Progression 1989- 2025
| Time | Swimmer | Nation | Date | Event | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1:46.69 | Giorgio Lamberti | Italy | 15 August 1989 | European Championships | Bonn, West Germany |
| 1:46.67 | Grant Hackett | Australia | 23 March 1999 | Australian Championships | Brisbane, Australia |
| 1:46.34 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 23 August 1999 | Pan Pacific Championships | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:46.00 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 24 August 1999 | Pan Pacific Championships | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:45.69 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 14 May 2000 | Australian Championships | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:45.51 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 15 May 2000 | Australian Championships | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:45.35 | Pieter van den Hoogenband | Netherlands | 17 September 2000 | Olympic Games | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:45.35 | Pieter van den Hoogenband | Netherlands | 18 September 2000 | Olympic Games | Sydney, Australia |
| 1:44.69 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 27 March 2001 | Australian Championships | Hobart, Australia |
| 1:44.06 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 25 July 2001 | World Championships | Fukuoka, Japan |
| 1:43.86 | Michael Phelps | United States | 27 March 2007 | World Championships | Melbourne, Australia |
| 1:42.96 | Michael Phelps | United States | 12 August 2008 | Olympic Games | Beijing, China |
| 1:42.00 | Paul Biedermann | Germany | 25 July 2009 | World Championships | Rome, Italy |
400m Freestyle - World Record Progression 1992- 2025
| Time | Swimmer | Nation | Date | Event | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3:45.00 | Yevgeny Sadovyi | Unified Team | 29 Jul 1992 | 1992 Summer Olympics | Barcelona, Spain |
| 3:43.80 | Kieren Perkins | Australia | 5 Sep 1994 | 1994 World Championships | Rome, Italy |
| 3:41.83 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 22 Aug 1999 | 1999 Pan Pacific Championships | Sydney, Australia |
| 3:41.33 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 13 May 2000 | Australian Olympic Trials | Sydney, Australia |
| 3:40.59 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 16 Sep 2000 | 2000 Summer Olympics | Sydney, Australia |
| 3:40.17 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 22 Jul 2001 | 2001 World Championships | Fukuoka, Japan |
| 3:40.08 | Ian Thorpe | Australia | 30 Jul 2002 | 2002 Commonwealth Games | Manchester, Great Britain |
| 3:40.07ss | Paul Biedermann | Germany | 26 Jul 2009 | 2009 World Aquatics Championships | Rome, Italy |
| 3:39.96 | Lukas Märtens | Germany | 12 April 2025 | Stockholm Open | Stockholm, Sweden |
The following is a celebration of the career of Ian Thorpe from the SOS Archive:
