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or no tax on their UK income. Time for HARDtalk. | :00:11. | :00:16. | |
Every so often, an athlete comes around whose achievements capture | :00:16. | :00:22. | |
the attention of the whole world. My guest today is the extraordinary | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
Australian swimmer, Ian Thorpe. At the height of his prowess in 2006, | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
he resigned, leaving sports fans mystified. Now, he has revealed | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
that throughout his career of gold medals and world records, he was | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
suffering from crippling depression. How can it be that sporting | :00:43. | :00:53. | |
:00:53. | :01:05. | ||
excellence and mental torment could co-exist? | :01:05. | :01:11. | |
In the last few months, you have dug deep into your own | :01:11. | :01:16. | |
vulnerability. Not talking just about the sport but your psyche, | :01:16. | :01:21. | |
yourself. How difficult has that been? It has been a very difficult | :01:21. | :01:25. | |
process because it is actually get a meeting to yourself that you see | :01:25. | :01:31. | |
part of your life for part of your existence as not being complete. | :01:31. | :01:37. | |
And that is how I felt about it for a long time, that there is | :01:37. | :01:42. | |
something missing in me. But in doing so, I have also accepted that | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
this is what I am struggling through and putting it out there | :01:45. | :01:49. | |
for people to see and showing a vulnerability that often is the | :01:49. | :01:54. | |
back story behind a number of athletes. That will surprise a | :01:54. | :02:00. | |
number of people. Because the key word is vulnerability. When you | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
look at elite athletes at the top of the game, the last thing they | :02:04. | :02:09. | |
appeared to be is vulnerable. agree. It is seeing that | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
performance. What most people see is just that tiny sliver of what an | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
athlete or someone in the public eye actually does. When I race, I | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
walk out with all the confidence in the world but behind that, there is | :02:24. | :02:30. | |
a lot going on. It is a mask. and you wear it to protect yourself. | :02:30. | :02:36. | |
You put it on to portray something that you think is ideal for that | :02:36. | :02:42. | |
situation. We all do it. If you are going for a job interview, you show | :02:42. | :02:47. | |
your best side. You don't tell them you will be lazy and Jeff Facebook. | :02:47. | :02:55. | |
But in sport, we put that on and it is part of the show. The Mask For | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
You was describing something very specific and actually something | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
very troubling. Because you have now talked about the way you have | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
suffered from severe depression, you caught it crippling. I have had | :03:08. | :03:13. | |
depression for a number of years. Going back to childhood. At the | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
time, I did not know the words around this. It didn't feel right. | :03:18. | :03:25. | |
I knew I had depression when I was in my early teens. The severity of | :03:25. | :03:30. | |
it was not all that that at that stage but it became worse and worse | :03:30. | :03:34. | |
while I was still being very successful. That is the thing. | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
Let's not forget, you won or First World Championship at 15, which was | :03:40. | :03:49. | |
a header off at the time. -- unheard-of. You will be coming your | :03:49. | :03:54. | |
best while dealing with these periods of bleakness, blackness. | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
Did swimming help alleviate the symptoms or exacerbate the | :03:59. | :04:04. | |
symptoms? I think I would have dealt with depression. I believe it | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
is something you are born with and is then exacerbated by | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
environmental pressures. But I look at cases of depression in sports | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
and I think there is an elevated level compared to the rest of the | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
population. Every doctor will recommend if you have depression to | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
do more exercise because it makes you feel good. That is why there | :04:26. | :04:31. | |
are more people in sport who have depression. And the circumstances | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
in elite sport may contribute to it in a way that makes it more | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
challenging. One thing that strikes me about your early years is that | :04:40. | :04:46. | |
people lashed on to your amazing Celine physique. There was a lot of | :04:46. | :04:49. | |
talk about how you were genetically built to be an amazing swimmer. | :04:49. | :04:59. | |
Tall body, and very big feet. Do that for the year? You were putting | :04:59. | :05:03. | |
in all this hard work and people were suggesting that no-one could | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
compete with you because you were built in a way that no-one else was. | :05:08. | :05:12. | |
I find it funny that this apparently became the ideal | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
physique. Since then, he will have beaten those records and now there | :05:17. | :05:21. | |
is a new ideal physique for swimming. I think this was just a | :05:21. | :05:25. | |
way of explaining my performances to people. It did not come from | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
physique were talent but a lot of hard work. I realised that have | :05:30. | :05:35. | |
recently when I did not qualify for the London Olympics. It is not just | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
about talent. We cannot talk about the decision to get back into the | :05:41. | :05:44. | |
swimming pool without talking about your decision to leave the swimming | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
pool. Many thought this was at a ridiculously early age and still at | :05:48. | :05:55. | |
your peak. When you look at your life in the team up to that | :05:55. | :06:00. | |
decision, do you now think you made a decision -- a terrible mistake? | :06:00. | :06:07. | |
Not at all. I had to do it. My career was not mind any more. I | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
felt like I do not have control over what I was doing. I felt like | :06:11. | :06:16. | |
my performances were four other people. I lost the simplicity and | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
the beauty of this fault of swimming. And I felt an immense | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
amount of pressure for other people -- from other people to continue | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
doing something that I was really miserable doing. And I knew I had | :06:29. | :06:36. | |
to get out of it. Talking about the misery, where you are using your | :06:36. | :06:42. | |
body? You have talked a little bit about alcohol in your life. How bad | :06:42. | :06:48. | |
was that? I think it is looking at the depression and not having a | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
handle over it and looking for any solution possible to just clear | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
yourself of the thoughts that you're having when you are in those | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
depths of depression. Hand so, there was a period when I was | :07:01. | :07:05. | |
drinking too much because I just wanted to forget. I would wake up | :07:05. | :07:10. | |
the next day and feeling worse. I would be even more depressed and I | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
would have a hangover. I would go to training and do it all again and | :07:14. | :07:20. | |
I would not have addressed what the issues worth. Unfortunately, I | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
realised -- and fortunately, and realise that this was not helping, | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
it was making things worse. And I had to delve deeper into what was | :07:29. | :07:33. | |
depression for me and getting my head around that because I didn't | :07:33. | :07:40. | |
understand that. In this interview, we have spoken about it from us and | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
isolation. Do you have anyone in your life you could talk to about | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
this? I chose not to because for so many years, I was embarrassed. I | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
did not want to talk about it. All children want to please their | :07:55. | :07:59. | |
parents on this very basic level. Did they not have the sense that | :08:00. | :08:05. | |
something was wrong? They did not know because I acted it very well. | :08:05. | :08:11. | |
They did not know. I was constantly covering up my tracks. They saw me | :08:11. | :08:16. | |
happy most of the time and most of the time I was happy. However, | :08:16. | :08:21. | |
there were times when it was put on because I did not want them to know. | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
You must be one heck of an actor. think I must have been. And now | :08:26. | :08:33. | |
that I have told them, it hurts them because I thought I could not | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
tell them. They want to help me. Even in those times when you have | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
actually said that late at night you would lie down and think about | :08:42. | :08:50. | |
suicide, and you would think about the how and the wear of doing it, | :08:50. | :08:54. | |
even then you couldn't talk to your mother? Somebody you were | :08:54. | :09:00. | |
extraordinarily tall -- host to the many ways? I am, but you have to | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
realise the rationality of depression is that you don't think | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
in that way. You start to see something like suicide as complete | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
the viable. And it becomes an option. And you think at the time | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
that it is actually rational. It is only after you have gone through | :09:16. | :09:22. | |
that period that you realise it was completely irrational and that is | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
when you seek help. It is not at the time of suicide that you | :09:26. | :09:33. | |
consider help. How close - honestly - do you think you came? I think | :09:33. | :09:38. | |
there is a part of considering what suicide would be like... I don't | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
think it is unnatural to think like that. But when you start being in a | :09:42. | :09:47. | |
place where you look at the methodology, how would you do the | :09:47. | :09:54. | |
least amount of damage to your family if you were to do it... | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
Moving into the used her away for their... And when you cannot clear | :10:00. | :10:05. | |
your mind of this kind of thinking for hours or sometimes days, you | :10:05. | :10:13. | |
know that you are very close. And I am lucky that I did not get to that | :10:13. | :10:19. | |
point. That I didn't get into that process of action. What we have not | :10:19. | :10:25. | |
talked about yet is what was going on outside of your family and those | :10:25. | :10:29. | |
closest to you. That is, the enormous pressure Australia, | :10:29. | :10:37. | |
particularly the Australian media, was placing upon you. I wonder | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
whether you as a teenager, and you were in your mid-to-late teens, | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
your early 20s, the fact that he became the subject of so much | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
speculation about your private life, the way you live your life, was | :10:52. | :10:57. | |
that something that became impossible for you to handle? | :10:57. | :11:02. | |
Australia's expectations. It became a weight. It became too difficult | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
for me to be able to handle all of this when all I wanted was to train | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
and swim and race. And that was taken away from me. And the context | :11:13. | :11:18. | |
of swimming changed for me. This is why I had to leave the sport | :11:18. | :11:25. | |
because I wanted to get my life back. I want to quote something by | :11:25. | :11:34. | |
Martin Flanagan in the Melbourne Age. He wrote, each day the media | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
reports on the fence in the sprinting world -- sporting world | :11:38. | :11:45. | |
with the time that should be preserved for war or serious | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
disasters. The guillotine falls on athletes who are not yet even | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
adults. Does this mean we should re-examine the way we look at sport | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
and sports people? There is a responsibility that comes with any | :11:58. | :12:04. | |
reporting in the media. I think that will place too high a value on | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
sport when there are things going on around the world, world issues | :12:07. | :12:11. | |
that need to be addressed, that should have this language attached | :12:11. | :12:17. | |
to it. If you start to think like that, you cannot be an elite | :12:17. | :12:22. | |
sportsmen, can you? Because you have to have a 100% one-dimensional | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
commitment to believe in this is your destiny, this is what you must | :12:26. | :12:31. | |
think, you must prepare a full, and if you lose that, you will never | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
get to the top. That is not true, you have to see the world. You have | :12:36. | :12:42. | |
to know your place in the world. If you don't have enough balance, you | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
will never have a tremendously successful career. It may last for | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
one competition, but it cannot be sustained. | :12:48. | :12:57. | |
I was shocked when I realised an Australian newspaper reporter had | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
asked you about your sexuality and whether you were gay was when you | :13:01. | :13:11. | |
:13:11. | :13:16. | ||
were 16 years old. What did that do to you? It made me look at what is | :13:16. | :13:23. | |
the need to? I had respect for this journalist. I was told that a | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
journalist's job was on the line if they did not ask the question. I | :13:26. | :13:33. | |
thought it was inappropriate. If someone goes and becomes a | :13:33. | :13:39. | |
journalist, they have noble intentions, but the way it is | :13:39. | :13:43. | |
corrupted by editors and what not in the media, I feel sorry that we | :13:43. | :13:49. | |
have gone down this path. It reduces people to have to get into | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
that gossipy area. I am sure their intentions when they started were | :13:52. | :13:57. | |
not that. I am just not sure why in a sense you have vowed to playing | :13:57. | :14:05. | |
that game. You wrote a very frank book over the past year. In it to | :14:05. | :14:12. | |
talk about her sexuality. - Make your sexuality. You say that you | :14:12. | :14:15. | |
are not gay and Europe only relationships have been with women. | :14:16. | :14:21. | |
Why have you gone there? You clearly resents the way the media | :14:21. | :14:28. | |
is trying to meddle in your private life. Why tell us this? People | :14:28. | :14:33. | |
think it is a big deal for me. It really isn't. I do not have a | :14:33. | :14:38. | |
problem talking about it in an intelligent way. Whatever I do, | :14:38. | :14:43. | |
whatever I say, it will not change people's opinions. So why did I | :14:43. | :14:49. | |
write it? It is to say to people that if I were a day I would not | :14:49. | :14:53. | |
have an issue with it. The part I find offensive in all of this is | :14:53. | :14:59. | |
that I am trying to deceive people. I am completely honest about it. | :14:59. | :15:03. | |
People think I am being dishonest. But by writing about it, you have | :15:03. | :15:08. | |
surely ensured that your every sort of personal and private moment and | :15:08. | :15:14. | |
decision from now on will be scrutinised. It already has been. | :15:14. | :15:20. | |
You think you are above it and cannot escape from that? When I | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
stopped swimming I felt as though I would be able to escape a lot of | :15:24. | :15:29. | |
his public attention. One of the hardest things when I returned to | :15:29. | :15:33. | |
summing was putting myself back up to the level of scrutiny I | :15:33. | :15:38. | |
experienced before. The hardest barrier to overcome. But I accepted | :15:38. | :15:43. | |
that this will become part of my life again. There is another | :15:43. | :15:53. | |
difficult element to sport. That is drugs. A French newspaper, in 2007, | :15:53. | :15:59. | |
just months after you quit the sport, ran a story saying they had | :15:59. | :16:02. | |
information that one of the tests you had taken you had shown | :16:02. | :16:08. | |
abnormal levels of two particular substances that were connected to | :16:08. | :16:14. | |
doping. There was a long investigation. You protested your | :16:14. | :16:24. | |
innocence. But it cast a shadow. Do you think that shadow has been | :16:24. | :16:30. | |
eliminated? For the most part, yes. But it will always remain. There | :16:30. | :16:36. | |
was an accusation of doping and cheating in the sport. I had two | :16:36. | :16:42. | |
irregular readings of two different hormones. My tests continue to come | :16:42. | :16:47. | |
back negative. I was completely innocent. But that will always be | :16:47. | :16:53. | |
on my record. Isn't that always the problem in sport now? If I ask you, | :16:53. | :17:02. | |
did you cheat, you will say, of course I have never. I knew you | :17:02. | :17:10. | |
would say that. You have been on record. But think about the lance | :17:10. | :17:16. | |
Armstrong for that. The problem is that some of the greatest sporting | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
icons and champions of full-time have gotten away with cheating. At | :17:19. | :17:24. | |
the same time they have been able to put forward proof that they were | :17:25. | :17:29. | |
able to pass countless drug tests. There seems to be a sophisticated | :17:29. | :17:37. | |
way of dodging the bullet. How much credibility can delete sport have? | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
The important thing that we need to get back to is an approach that | :17:41. | :17:46. | |
when somebody does do something incredible, that people applaud the | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
performance, they should not assume the person is taking drugs. That is | :17:50. | :17:54. | |
what sport needs to work towards, getting back to that stage. -- | :17:54. | :18:00. | |
stage. The testing procedures are the best they have ever been. They | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
are not perfect. Some things can be improved. One of the best things | :18:05. | :18:10. | |
that has been introduced is a blood passport that has not existed | :18:10. | :18:17. | |
before. You're adamant you never took drugs. But do you believe you | :18:17. | :18:22. | |
swam against people who were taking drugs? Not great rivals of mine. | :18:23. | :18:28. | |
But I have beaten people who were taking drugs. We have talked in | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
troubling detail about the difficulties you had with | :18:31. | :18:36. | |
everything that came with swimming at the very top in your late genius | :18:36. | :18:41. | |
and 20s. We have also talked about the corrosive reality of drugs in | :18:41. | :18:47. | |
sport. I am just wondering why on earth, having quit and walked away, | :18:47. | :18:54. | |
you recently made the decision to go back? I wanted to swim again. | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
You can swim without getting locked into this whole rigmarole of | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
constant daily training, media pressure and question marks about | :19:04. | :19:10. | |
who is cheating. I wanted to some at an elite level. It is part of | :19:10. | :19:16. | |
what I do. I want to move in the water. I want to train. It is an | :19:16. | :19:23. | |
very elite level. I feel as perfect as it possibly can in the water. | :19:23. | :19:28. | |
This is my appeal in swimming. It is not about beating. It is about | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
finding the perfect stroke. To do that I have to go through a lot of | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
training. It is in competition I get to feel that. It is interesting | :19:37. | :19:42. | |
you decided to come back in a time when Australia is struggling to | :19:42. | :19:48. | |
find world champions a mess. During your time, Sydney was doing | :19:48. | :19:55. | |
fantastically. Now there is a national commission of inquiry to | :19:55. | :20:03. | |
discover why not one Australian coach has been able to find out why | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
Australian summers are going soft. That is a generalisation. Some | :20:08. | :20:14. | |
people do need a kick from behind to get going. Given that you are | :20:14. | :20:21. | |
now training with them and back in a national team? I think there is a | :20:21. | :20:27. | |
lot of competition as to why this chillier swam so well. It is not as | :20:27. | :20:34. | |
simple as people are soft. There will be an inquiry into what is | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
happening in sport. It is not just swimming. Trant Butcher finger on | :20:39. | :20:45. | |
what the problem has been. There are multiple problems. There is a | :20:45. | :20:51. | |
lot of competition. We had a lot of champions. They are competing for a | :20:51. | :20:59. | |
tiny sliver of sports marketing merger. There is a division in the | :20:59. | :21:05. | |
Australians won team that needs to be reconciled. We need to look at | :21:05. | :21:11. | |
what sport needs. That has been lost. I am interested to take it in | :21:11. | :21:16. | |
that direction. It seems to have always had a fascinating | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
relationship with the Israeli in public. You talk about why you swim. | :21:19. | :21:24. | |
You say it makes you feel as perfect as you can be. It is about | :21:24. | :21:29. | |
getting the most out of yourself. He never seemed like an athlete | :21:29. | :21:35. | |
Russian to cover themselves in the national flag. Doing it in a sort | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
of patriotic pride. Do you feel you have had an awkward relationship | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
with the Australian public? They are used to sports people with a | :21:45. | :21:50. | |
lot of testosterone and aggressiveness. You have never been | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
quite like that. I have never been. But for the most part it has been a | :21:56. | :22:02. | |
point of difference. We are seeing a time of athletes that are not | :22:02. | :22:05. | |
that kind of stereotypical Australian athlete we have seen in | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
the past. The only thing I do not like at the moment his | :22:10. | :22:15. | |
personalities in sport. Some athletes are not able to speak on | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
how they feel about their sport. It does not match that stereotype. | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
have made it plain you find the treatment of the aboriginal peoples | :22:24. | :22:34. | |
:22:34. | :22:36. | ||
of Australia outrageous. It is a scar. It amounts to the same thing. | :22:36. | :22:40. | |
When you look at things like that and the attitudes Australians have, | :22:40. | :22:46. | |
do you still have that sense of isolation that you had as a child | :22:46. | :22:52. | |
when you could not really explain it? The Australians that icy an | :22:52. | :22:59. | |
around actually believe we can fix things like this. The most pressing | :22:59. | :23:05. | |
issue that Australians have as we are tremendously successful around | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
the world is looking at the way that we treat those who are in the | :23:09. | :23:13. | |
greatest need. In Australia that happens to be the indigenous | :23:13. | :23:18. | |
population. They are overlooked and grossly neglected by government and | :23:18. | :23:24. | |
people's attitudes towards them. It needs to change. It is a scar that | :23:24. | :23:28. | |
we really need to heal for Australia to achieve greatness. | :23:28. | :23:33. | |
other issue, different, but I wonder what do you felt a degree of | :23:33. | :23:39. | |
empathy with it, when Julia Gillard lost to Canberra in Parliament and | :23:39. | :23:44. | |
directed a huge amount of anger at Tony Abbott. She said to him, if | :23:44. | :23:49. | |
you want to know what misogyny looks like, just look in a mirror. | :23:49. | :23:54. | |
Did you have a lot of sympathy with the Prime Minister? I do not think | :23:54. | :23:57. | |
she lost her temper. I think she deliberately chose the words and | :23:57. | :24:01. | |
the time that she wanted to get across a message that she was not | :24:01. | :24:09. | |
going to weight. If the Opposition leader wanted a battle... Do you | :24:09. | :24:14. |