October 13, 2012
On a poetic sort of autumn morning in Locarno at the foot of the Swiss Alps, the sun is beginning to burn off the mist lying over Lake Maggiore and around the corner of our little terraced hotel strolls a golden, godlike figure. It's not just his height, or the massive shoulders, but the whole of him seems almost to belong to a race apart, reducing the rest of us - me, a photographer and the few guests taking in coffee along with the view - to the stature of Lilliputians.
Ian Thorpe lives for half the year now in this glorious spot, training under Russian coach Gennadi Touretski. He has just taken possession of a lakeside house and, as he will tell me, feels comfortably at home. But there's an odd thing: as he holds out a huge hand in greeting, I notice he is shaking with nerves and there are beads of sweat on his brow. Later, as we talk, he is forthcoming, but the top lip still quivers and there is a kind of poised wariness.
On a poetic sort of autumn morning in Locarno at the foot of the Swiss Alps, the sun is beginning to burn off the mist lying over Lake Maggiore and around the corner of our little terraced hotel strolls a golden, godlike figure. It's not just his height, or the massive shoulders, but the whole of him seems almost to belong to a race apart, reducing the rest of us - me, a photographer and the few guests taking in coffee along with the view - to the stature of Lilliputians.
Ian Thorpe lives for half the year now in this glorious spot, training under Russian coach Gennadi Touretski. He has just taken possession of a lakeside house and, as he will tell me, feels comfortably at home. But there's an odd thing: as he holds out a huge hand in greeting, I notice he is shaking with nerves and there are beads of sweat on his brow. Later, as we talk, he is forthcoming, but the top lip still quivers and there is a kind of poised wariness.
