Thorpe's dream a nightmare

After an encouraging heat swim he qualified in fifth spot for last night's 200 metres freestyle semi-finals and the bandwagon was suddenly jampacked, with everyone seeing a glimpse of the Thorpe they once knew and cheered.

In the semis, Thorpe led his rivals for the first 100 and things appeared to be travelling as most expected. At that point in his previous swimming career, Thorpe would have changed into that extra gear he possessed, and powered away from his rivals. Last night, when he went for the gear change, he simply stalled.

He could only manage sixth in his heat, and 12th overall, in a time of 1 minute 49.91 seconds (0.75 seconds slower than his heat time). That was it, and for Thorpe, three words rarely associated with him … not good enough. He was out of the event.after the race, Thorpe's face showed greater disappointment than the Saturday morning when he fell from the blocks and was disqualified at the 2004 Olympic trials in Sydney. Back then, he would have known he would still make the team in other events. Here he knew this was his best chance, and that it could have been his last real shot at ever making another Olympic team.

''I am terribly disappointed,'' a shattered Thorpe said as he climbed from the pool. ''The fairytale has turned into a nightmare. After the race, obviously I was disappointed and the more time I have had to digest it, the more disappointed I am.

''I guess what I am probably most disappointed about, is I was really pleased with my swim this morning. I swam the race really well this morning with a lot of control and felt that I'd make progress not only tonight, but into the final tomorrow. That's not the case.

''When I wanted to go, I just didn't have the pick-up there. For me, it was a pretty ordinary swim.''

Asked if he had ever felt as disappointed as he did last night, Thorpe said: ''The only other time was at our trials for Athens Olympics (when he fell in), but I guess that I have never felt like this after a race.

''I've never felt just utterly gutted and kind of left speechless by a performance and asking all of the questions like 'why did this happen, why is this going on?' So it's a new thing and I don't know how I'll handle it, but I'll have to handle it well so that I can get myself back up.''

He admitted he had even already asked himself the ''has it all been worth it?'' question.

''After feeling like that, the first thing is it would have been a lot easier to have not even tried and that's the reality of doing something like this. It would have been easier to ignore it, but within me I wanted to do this. I wanted to see if I was capable of being able to perform at an elite level again.

''I think in my make-up and how I am, I am glad that I have done it, persisted through it and been able to come out the other side, and I think it's better to attempt something and fail than it is to not even attempt it.''

The dream is not officially dead as Thorpe will contest the 100 freestyle, but the reality is, his best hope was in the 200.

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