Word: suttons
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...basketballer's feet and hands, he can move water like the moon. His cartoon elasticity, combined with the longest stroke in swimming, makes "Thorpedo" everything his nickname suggests: sleek, smooth, strangely beautiful and, to the competition, lethal. "If you were going to do a Frankenstein," says Brian Sutton, coach of nine Australian Olympians, "if you were going to put a swimmer together from scratch, you'd build Ian Thorpe...
...basketballer's feet and hands, he can move water like the moon. His cartoon elasticity, combined with the longest stroke in swimming, makes "Thorpedo" everything his nickname suggests: sleek, smooth, strangely beautiful and, to the competition, lethal. "If you were going to do a Frankenstein," says Brian Sutton, coach of nine Australian Olympians, "if you were going to put a swimmer together from scratch, you'd build Ian Thorpe...
Coaches like Sutton see thousands of hopefuls, and there's always a weakness: aerobic or strength limitations, lack of com-petitiveness, laziness, fragility. Something. But in Thorpe, Sutton can't find one, and neither can many others. "He marries grace with power," says Armstrong. "He caresses the water, but when it's time to be brutal, he's like a raging bull...
...Sutton believes Thorpe can improve his time, particularly in the 200 m, in which his world record of 1:45.51 is comparatively less imposing. "I don't think we've seen anything near the best of him over 200 m," says Sutton, who argues that the endurance training required for the 400 m is hindering Thorpe's speed in the shorter events...
...argued that Thorpe, by winning the 400 m at the 1998 world championships in front of a home crowd, has handled the most excruciating pressure his sport can throw at him. This is wrong. There is something singularly exciting and terrifying about the Olympics, where even in finals, says Sutton, "there'll be five guys who handle the pressure and three who don't." Says Armstrong: "We're not paying the world enough respect. The Olympic Games are about passion; they're not always about times...