THORPEDO

Well, it wouldn't be a "Legends of Swimming" drawing without an Aussie. He is one of the greatest swimmers ever, and, in my opinion, one of the sports world's saddest tragedies: Ian Thorpe. At Athens he was amazing, but then he took a year off, and was never able to really get back on the horse. When he recently retired he cited "waning motivation." I can appreciate that it is hard to swim like that for that long. We used to joke that our coach was the devil because of the hell in water he put us through. But to have such an amazing talent, AND live in a country where swimming is what baseball or football are here, I don't understand how you can have "waning motivation." It just makes me sad. I hope that he'll pull a Jordan and make me eat my words in 2008.

He was amazing though. As much as it pains me, watch him spank Michael Phelps in the 200 meter free at Athens: