Ian Thorpe is on the eighth floor of ABC headquarters in Ultimo, Sydney, seated in an empty boardroom. Behind him is a floor-to-ceiling window facing west, looking out onto the city. The famous Frank Gehry-designed “crumpled paper bag” building at the University of Technology Sydney rises from the earth like a giant alien root, consuming much of the view.

I figure it’s fitting to ask, given where we are, if Thorpe has watched Barracuda, ABC TV’s recent miniseries about a young, gay, stop-at-nothing swimmer determined to make the Olympics.

He hasn’t seen it but he’s heard about it. “Everyone’s like, is it about you?” he says, laughing. “I say no, it’s about one of my other friends.”

The show contemplates mental health issues associated with professional (and professional-aspiring) sportspeople. It’s an issue that flared up again the week following our interview; for his part, Thorpe believes there may be a higher rate of mental illness among athletes than we know about.

“I was made aware of that a few years ago and I’ve wondered why. I don’t know if sport attracts you to it, or how sport helps you with it,” he says. “For all of us, when we compete, we never know what the result will be. People put in the same amount of hours as the Olympic champion and never get that same result. That’s tough.”

Ian Thorpe celebrates winning the 400 metre freestyle during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Photograph: Adam Pretty/Getty Images

There are also champions, like himself, who after a lifetime of training find themselves no longer able to compete at an elite level: “You go from doing between 30 and 40 hours of training a week, to then wanting not only to fill in that time but also find something you’re passionate about again. And you also compare that to what you used to do, the success you once had.”

Before he retired for the first time at age 24, Thorpe had broken 22 world records. He collected Olympic medals as if they were going out of fashion: five gold, three silver and one bronze, making him, in medal tally terms, the most successful Australian Olympian in history. At the same time, the world famous swimmer battled crippling depression, having suffered mental health issues since he was a teenager.

There were occasions when Thorpe says being in the public spotlight, where he was regularly reminded of his remarkable achievements as an athlete, only made it worse.

“Because you’ve done something extremely well you start to question why you feel the way you do,” he says. “It becomes difficult when you try to rationalise that. There’s also a sense of guilt for not feeling on top of the world when really you should be. But if you’re a depressed person in a depressed state, you don’t rationalise things well. You have to be out of that period to be able to see things clearly.”

Things got so bad for Thorpe that at one point, as he articulated in his 2012 autobiography This is Me, he was extensively self-medicating with alcohol and began planning potential places to end his life. One would never get an inkling of this while viewing the champion’s success from afar – watching his photo finishes, perhaps, or those moments on the podium with a medal dangling around his neck.

These are the times when winners pose for the cameras and wave to the crowd. Are we are all guilty, at one point or another, of associating visions of success with assumptions of happiness? If we see a person clutching a trophy with a smile stretching ear-to-ear, do we instinctively assume that person must be feeling on top of the world?

“Oh I think so. Yes, that is usually the case,” Thorpe says. “But if we ask people about the happiest moments of their lives, they are completely different to those kind of awarding ceremonies. There are certain things people place value on. They think, when I get to here in my career, I’ll be happy. Or when I achieve this, it will make me happy. But it’s the process of any of those things, that’s where the real happiness is. If you don’t find that along the way, you’re never going to be happy when you get there.”

A core issue concerning the mental health of elite athletes is how they can best transition to the next phase in their lives once their sporting careers are over. For Thorpe it was a matter of evolving from being one kind of champion to another – throwing his weight behind causes such as mental health, Indigenous literacy and gay rights.

‘There’s a sense of guilt for not feeling on top of the world when really you should be.’



Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images

Also, perhaps unexpectedly, starring as the presenter of a new two-part miniseries, Bullied, which commences on ABC TV on 14 March. The program explores bullying in Australian high schools. In one scene, screened prior to our interview, parents sit down with Thorpe and watch secretly recorded footage of their son being harassed, while the presenter also observes it for the first time.

“Most of the families break down at that moment, understandably,” he says. “They’re actually seeing their child being bullied rather than hearing about it later. It was difficult for me – though of course nowhere near as difficult as it was for the families – in the sense I wanted to go over and tell the child or the family, it’s OK. It’s going to get better. To reassure them. I also knew that, as presenter, it also wasn’t my role to do that at that particular time.”

Thorpe has read a lot on the subject of career transitions for once top-of-their-game athletes such as himself, including studies from the UK. According to Thorpe, experts there have recently examined the impact that termination of a sporting career can have on individuals cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally, some describing the period as a form of mourning.

“Often what happens is what made them [the athletes] feel great about themselves was the success they had, and they didn’t really develop others parts of their lives to get the balance right. Generally athletes are becoming slightly more well-rounded people, but more needs to be done in this area,” he says.

“I don’t think it was a mourning for me personally, because I always thought of myself as more than whatever I did in the pool. I had a mindset that I still wanted to do great things with the rest of my life. I wasn’t sure what they were going to be at the time, but I knew that I could move forwards.”

• Bullied premieres on ABC TV on 14 March at 8.30pm

• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. Hotlines in other countries can be found here