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Upon a question about how he felt while swimming, Thorpe said he did not consider himself 30 years old in sport because of the four years of retirement, in which he did not compete in any races. Rather, he said he thought of himself as a 26-year-old athlete.

“I kind of take the four years off that I did not have the wear and tear on my body like the other swimmers have had because I was not swimming during the time,” Thorpe said, adding that he had swum socially during the four years but had not trained at a professional level.

Image courtesy of xiaming, CC BY-SA 3.0