Thorpe Starts Gold Rush With a Record

As if to dispel any doubts about the substance behind the hype, the Thorpedo detonated on impact in Manchester's Aquatics Centre last night. Chasing seven gold medals at these Commonwealth Games, Ian Thorpe snapped up the first in the final of the 400m freestyle, breaking his own world record and setting himself up for an unforgettable week.

Leading home his Australian team-mate Grant Hackett and Graeme Smith of Scotland, the 19-year-old Thorpe recorded 3min 40.08sec, nine hundredths of a second below the mark he set during the world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, last year, and more than four seconds inside his own four-year-old games record. Ecstatically received by a marvellously generous crowd, it was the 22nd world record of his remarkable career.

One swimmer, you might think, looks very much like another. Face down in skull caps and goggles, and nowadays in wet suits too, they seem as undifferentiated as a school of dolphins. But you have only to watch Thorpe swim a length to see the difference between Australia's superhero and those who labour in his wake.

Like all great sportsmen, he seems to have extra time in which to do his work. However urgent the contest, however heated the environment, their actions betray no sense of hurry. Thorpe breaking a world freestyle record joins a mental gallery of images including Garry Sobers flicking a good-length ball off his legs between square-leg and mid-wicket, Barry John eluding a would-be tackler, Stirling Moss holding a four-wheel drift with his fingertips, John McEnroe finessing an angled volley and Michael Jordan twisting through the air. All of these men could bend time to their will and Thorpe is now among their number.

He creates the illusion of swimming half as fast as his competitors, while travelling twice as far. He is a racer but, if you took a piece of film and blanked out his rivals, he would look like a man on a moderately strenuous training exercise. His body, clad in a black wetsuit that stretches from neck to ankle, lies flat in the water, barely undulating as he covers a 50m length in 30 strokes.

In the crawl his arm action is long and languid; if he were a cyclist, you would say he was pushing a big gear. There is something almost serene about the way his hands cleave the water with so little disturbance.

His outsize feet are the most famous since those of the basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, who orders his trainers in size 23. Thorpe's size 17 soles may be modest by comparison but they are just as crucial to his dominance.

Rivals, understandably envious of one who appears to have been born with what amounts to a pair of flippers, speak of the difficulties they experience in swimming in adjacent lanes. But visual evidence suggests that his use of his feet is so economical and effective that he actually creates less of a turbulent sidewash than his competitors.

Thorpe won four gold medals at the last Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, when he was 15. That same year he took his first two world championship titles in Perth. In 1999, at the Pan-Pacific Championships, he set four world records in four days. On the opening day of the 2000 Olympics, in his home town, he won the 400m freestyle in a world record time and went on to take two more gold and two silver medals.

This week, following last night's 400m freestyle and later the 4x100m freestyle relay in which he swam the anchor leg, he goes for the 200m freestyle today, the 100m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle relay tomorrow, the 100m backstroke on Friday and the 4x100m medley relay on Sunday, the event that closes the swimming gala and should send him off into history with a haul resembling that of Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics.

And if he brings it off, it will encourage him to believe that he can match Spitz's record of seven golds for real in Athens in two years' time.

He made his first appearance in Manchester's pool yesterday morning, in the third heat of the 400m. He is not a particularly imposing figure but, as he stood on the platform in the "ready" position, his left foot advanced and his hands on his knees, he looked like something that Rodin or Degas might have wanted to immortalise. When the six swimmers emerged from the long submarine glide that follows the entry dive, he was already leading by the length of his outstretched arm.

What gift is that? Timing? Streamlining? Sheer natural propulsion? And once under way, the power of his stroke was unmistakable. He dismissed a mid-race challenge from his compatriot Craig Stevens with an effortless burst of acceleration that took him clear to qualify for the final in 3:47.24sec.

Thorpe was excused duty in the 4x100 relay heat, in which Ashley Callus, Adam Pine, Leon Dunne and Todd Pearson completed the formality of qualifying for the final. But, when he returned to win the 400m final with such a majestic display of superiority, the idea that he might have needed a rest seemed absurd.

Hackett, the world's fastest man over 1,500m, pulled level after two lengths but was shrugged off before half distance. Thereafter the true race was for third place, with the bullet-headed Smith earning an ovation as he touched ahead of Stevens to prevent an Australian sweep.

"I'm pretty happy," Thorpe said. "I came here relaxed and the crowd and the atmosphere they generated made it easier."

And so, in just under four minutes, these already successful games were lifted to another level. Events in other disciplines will still be taking place in the various venues scattered around Manchester but anyone else will have a job getting a look-in between now and Sunday night's climax in the pool.