POSTED: February 9th 2011
NewsUpdate
NEIL WILSON: History lesson could come in handy for Thorpedo
THE NEIL WILSON COLUMN / An exclusive, authoritative series from Sports Features Communications
LONDON, Feb 08: Sporting comebacks are the topic of the moment, and I am not prompted to the discussion by Newcastle United’s recovery from a four-goal deficit against Arsenal in the Premier League. Unprecedented as that is for the Gunners, the more incredible last week was Ian Thorpe’s announcement of a return to swimming five years into his competitive retirement.
You might think that unprecedented. Even the great discus thrower Al Oerter, who won four straight Olympic titles, took only three years off between throws. But, no, there is the example of another swimmer, Dana Torres, who came back to Olympic competition, as Thorpe plans, after an eight-year absence.
There is a difference. Torres was not a mega figure in her sport when she retired for the first time (she has retired for a second time and is talking of returning again for 2012). Her fairy story was one of age. She was in her thirties when she came back and 41 when she won medals in 2008.
Thorpe is an Olympic legend. What makes his decision so fascinating is the threat to the reputation created first time round.
At present he is one of the Olympic gods, forever remembered for his feats. The timing of his departure was perfectly judged when the aura was in danger of dissipating. As Walt Disney advised “always leave them wanting more”. And Thorpe did.
Shadow men
Few sporting sequels, like few Hollywood movies, are as successful as the original. Think immediately of Michael Schumacher, the seven-times Formula One world champion who has been a shadow of his former self since his return. Or Muhammad Ali who came back after two years to a beating.
Bjorn Borg, Ben Johnson, Katarina Witt and Torvill and Dean are others who spring to mind as failing to add anything to their reputations second time around and losing some of the lustre.
You won’t find it hard to find some who succeeded. Michael Jordan won three more NBA titles but he had been out for only 17 months. Andre Agassi won the French Open after a year out. Kim Clijsters has won three Grand Slam after a maternity break to start a family but it was a relatively brief absence.
Most simply don’t have the drive to succeed that attended their early triumphs. Their hunger was sated, the reason usually that they quit in the first place. Money, or ego, or, as in Thorpe’s case apparently, nostalgia for former times drive them, and it is rarely enough.
I wish him well. I hope he does make a spot in the Australian 4 x 200 metres freestyle team in 2012. I just wish he had left us with our memories of the great Thorpedo, not some third choice relay swimmer.
NEIL WILSON reported his first Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. He has since covered another nine summer and nine winter Olympics for various newspapers, including The Independent and the Daily Mail with whom he has worked for the last 19 years as Athletics and Olympic correspondent. He was Britain's Sports Journalist of the Year in 1984 and is the author of seven books
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