Thorpe a true winner despite Dutch defeat

Australia is in mourning today over the discovery that Ian Thorpe is not unbeatable. That the Australian dollar is sinking fast is hard enough to bear, but to discover that the Thorpedo does not automatically go to the front of the queue every time he enters an Olympic pool will give this proudest of sporting nations a brief but deep sense of sporting bankruptcy.

Thorpe was the colossal kid with the soft face whose Olympic success was inevitable, the freestyle champion whose image shone from billboards, magazine covers and TV screens throughout the land.

The only way that the Netherlands' Pieter van den Hoogenband was meant to lick him was if he nipped down to Australia Post and bought the 40 cents stamp introduced to commemorate Thorpe's Olympic victory over 400m. But it was Van den Hoogenband who had first stolen Thorpe's 200m world record in the semi-final and then equalled the time in last night's final to outstay him by almost half a second for gold.

"Ernie Dingo here, mate, Australian larrikin. It's all double Dutch to me, mate." They were the words that first greeted Van den Hoogenband after his success, and no Australian immediately cared for much deeper analysis. But by trying to match the Dutchman, a more natural sprinter, over the first 150 metres - the clock could not split them as they turned for the last time - Thorpe had arguably left too little in reserve.

He had been beaten for the first time in two years over 200 or 400m. But if invincibility was no longer an option, he could not have accepted his fallibility in a more gracious manner.

There is practised magnanimity, when the right words are expressed more out of politeness than conviction, and there is the higher form, as presented by Thorpe, in which he showed warm appreciation of a worthy sporting rival. "A great athlete beat me," he said. "After my gold in the 400, standing on the podium and feeling time slow down, you just want every athlete to share the experience.

"I am not going to win every race. I am not going to break every record. I hope that people now see that it doesn't always work out. There was a lot of excitement, but I don't think it was excessive. Pressure is a distraction only if you want it to be. The only pressure I accept is the pressure I put on myself."

Nevertheless, defeat had brought a little perspective. Thorpe, already one of Australia's most recognisable celebrities, might yet seek more privacy by doing his final year's schooling, followed by a university course in economics, in the United States.

Van den Hoogenband's star quality had long been evident, no more so than when he won six golds in the 1999 European championships, overcoming the great Alexander Popov over 50 and 100m. It was the Dutch swimming foundation, set up two years ago by his parents under the individualistic coaching control of Jacco Verhaeren, which had so revitalised his country's swimming.

Thorpe had imagined, as had all of us, that he had something in reserve after Sunday evening's semi-final. Then he had failed by 2/100ths to recapture the world record claimed by Van den Hoogenband in the previous heat. "I thought the world record would only last two minutes," the Dutchman luxuriated. "Now it has lasted all of two days."

Thorpe has left a huge impression on these Games. He has explained how he seeks to seduce the water, to gain a feel for it. There is no sense of vigour about his stroke, merely a smooth and powerful progression. Out of the pool, he has had the gentle self-assurance of a champion, so much so that it is a surprise when he is not.

An Olympic programme which crams the 200m, 400m and 4x200m freestyle relay in the first three days of an eight-day schedule is clearly a nonsense.

Britain can at least reflect that two of its swimmers, Paul Palmer and Jamie Salter, took part in a memorable final, finishing fifth and sixth respectively. Palmer, who had been so disappointing over 400m, set a British record, and his fifth-place finish secured more lottery funding. He called the experience "a privilege". There was no cause to decry him for that.