‘Illness could have hampered Thorpe’s bid’

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Sydney: Australian swimming hero Ian Thorpe has a respiratory tract infection and this could have slowed him down when he was beaten in the 200 metres freestyle, team doctors said on Thursday. ABC radio said Thorpe had been quarantined from the rest of the Australian Olympic team because of the infection.

"He wouldn't have been competing at as high a fitness level as he would have liked," Australian team head doctor Brian Sando told a news conference.

Sando said Thorpe started to feel the effects of an upper respiratory tract infection on Monday, when he went down to a 200 metres defeat by Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband that shocked Australia.

"That afternoon he started to get the first signs of his problem," he said.Symptoms included a sore throat, headache, runny nose, and a slight fever. "It's a viral type infection so antibiotics aren't appropriate," Sando said, adding that all he could do was treat the symptoms.

Thorpe won the gold medal for the men's 400 metres freestyle in world record time and anchored the men's 4 x 100 metres freestyle relay team to victory on the first day of the Games. He also won gold in the 4 x 200 metres freestyle.

Thorpe appeared fit and well at a news conference on Wednesday, and said he still wanted one more Olympic medal to add to his haul. The 17-year-old golden boy, Australia's biggest hero of the Games so far, said he was pressing for a slot on the 4 x 100m medley relay team, even though his presence is considered doubtful. He made no mention of any illness.



(c) Reuters Limited.