Ian Thorpe on Turning 40, and How Life Has Changed Over The Last Few Decades

For many of us, it feels like yesterday when a teenaged swimmer named Ian Thorpe was toppling world records, seemingly at will. Yet that precocious soul has just turned 40 – and is ready now to peer both backwards and forwards on a remarkable life, one punctuated by great achievements and profound personal challenges. These days, something that speaks eloquently to Thorpe’s complexity and the costs imposed by a life in the spotlight is the nature of his most heartfelt yearning: to be able to see the world again through the eyes of a child.