During 9/11, the five-time Australian Olympic gold medalist narrowly escaped death, all because he forgot his camera.
A forgotten camera sent Ian Thorpe back, narrowly holding him back from the World Trade Center that morning. Ian Thorpe was just 18 when a forgotten camera changed course one September morning. The Australian swimming sensation was in New York on September 11, 2001 and planned to visit the observation deck of the World Trade Center. He had already gone for an early morning run, grabbed his coffee and headed towards the towers when he realized he had left his camera at his hotel.So Thorpe turned.This seemingly insignificant decision meant that he was back in his hotel room when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center. What followed changed the world, and Thorpe later looked back on those few minutes as an extraordinary stroke of fate.“He was probably 20 minutes away from being there,” one of Thorpe’s managers, Frank Turner, told Australian radio.“He was in shock… a few minutes later and who knows what could have happened?”Thorpe himself described the experience as a “very, very close call” and said moments like it made him realize “some things were meant to be”. It was a narrow escape that came just weeks after the teenager pulled off one of the greatest feats in swimming history.
Ian Thorpe was a swimming phenomenon even before fate
When Thorpe arrived in New York, he wasn’t just a promising young swimmer. In September 2001, he was already a world sports star.Just a few months earlier, at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, he won six gold medals and set four world records. His records came in the men’s 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and the Australian 800m freestyle relay.His times were outstanding: 1:44.06 in the 200m freestyle, 3:40.17 in the 400m, 7:39.16 in the 800m and 7:04.66 in the Australian 800m freestyle relay.This performance followed an equally memorable Olympic debut on home soil in Sydney in 2000.
- Gold: 400 m freestyle
- Gold: The 4x100m freestyle relay where he anchored Australia to victory in a dramatic finish
- Gold: 4×200 m freestyle relay
- Silver: 200 m freestyle
- Silver: 4×100 m medley relay
When Thorpe returned to his hotel room on September 11, he was already a five-time Olympic champion.And his career was just beginning.Thorpe produced another defining Olympic performance at the 2004 Athens Games, winning the men’s 200 m freestyle in the race of the century. In one of the most anticipated races of the games, the defending champion beat Pieter van den Hoogenband and American teenager Michael Phelps.He also successfully defended his Olympic 400m freestyle title beating fellow Australian Grant Hackett, adding silver in the 800m freestyle relay and bronze in the 100m freestyle.His international resume continued to grow. Thorpe won three more world titles in 2003, while a year earlier he set a world record of 3:40.08 in the 400m freestyle at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.This limit was broken only in 2009, when the German Paul Biedermann went 0.01 seconds faster in a high-tech super suit. Thorpe’s time remains the fastest 400m freestyle ever recorded in a textile suit.He finally retired in 2006 after withdrawing from the Commonwealth Games due to bronchitis. Five years later, he attempted a comeback to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics, but failed at the Australian Olympic Trials.His life after elite swimming also remained closely linked to issues outside of sport. Thorpe has advocated for same-sex marriage in Australia and has spoken openly about his struggles with depression and the difficulties he experienced navigating life as an elite athlete as a gay man. In 2017, he presented a two-part documentary exploring the effects of bullying.But when Thorpe thinks back to 9/11, the extraordinary list of medals and records isn’t what makes that morning remarkable.He was in New York with plans to see the World Trade Center. He intended to visit him with Michelle’s friend, who lived with him. Instead, Thorpe was the one who went down alone, realized he had forgotten his camera and turned back.
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“I went there on the morning of 9/11,” Thorpe recalled. “It was early in the morning and I went for a run. I got my coffee and went back to my hotel room and literally at that time the planes hit.”“It was a very, very close call.Thorpe later said that he and his friend talked about visiting the World Trade Center in the morning and the Empire State Building at night.Instead, the forgotten camera sent him back to the hotel almost exactly when his plans needed to be changed.“I told my friend we could go to the World Trade Center in the morning and you go to the Empire State Building in the evening,” Thorpe said. “But in the end I was the one who went there. Things like that make you realize it’s fate. Some things were meant to be and I realize I’m very lucky.”