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