Ian Thorpe opens up on darkest moment of his career
Ian Thorpe has recalled the moment an irregular drug test almost upended his life and destroyed his reputation.
The Aussie swimming legend opened up about a few key moments in his personal life that coincided with the height of his swimming career in a tell-all new book.
The 41-year-old athlete singled out the drug test chapter as one of the darkest moments of his career in a new book Profiles In Hope, written by former NSW Liberal leader John Brogden.
In 2006, Thorpe underwent a routine drug test that returned an irregular result, with French newspaper L’Equipe reporting that he had returned an unusual level of testosterone.
However, results also showed a hormone called leutenising hormone, another naturally occurring substance.
The news of the test gained international attraction, and resulted in Thorpe launching a lawsuit against the newspaper.
“An irregular test isn’t uncommon. They happen. So firstly, no one should know that information to begin with,” Thorpe says in the book, according to the Daily Mail.
“An irregular test means nothing. An irregular test gets thrown out."
He said at the time the speculation that he was a cheat was “so upsetting” and the way the information was leaked to French journalist made him feel “deeply alarmed”.
He also admitted that during the media storm around the testing, he did not want to leave his home and says now he had thoughts about taking his own life and staging it as an accident.
The “Thorpedo” now has the tools in place for his mental health to look back and think he could have handled it better.
“In that kind of state, you’re entirely irrational, your logic is warped,” he tells Brogden.
“It’s only in the periods when you have clarity of mind, when your mental health is good, that you can actually reflect on things and say, ‘Well, I could have done this’.
“I realised what I was doing wasn’t working, and that I needed help. So I got that help, and even though I was still in a long-term depressive state, I got better. I wasn’t at the point of suicide.”
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