'Thorpie' really is what Sydneysiders call a top bloke

9:30 PM

It was defeat by less than half a second - maybe three times the length of that huge paddle-like hand.

But if he had to settle for silver in the 200m freestyle final, he got something else he valued as much as gold.

The Australian swimming star and games giant, Ian Thorpe, was an hour late showing up for the press conference on Monday night after being pipped for the gold by a film-star-handsome Dutch medical student called Pieter van den Hoogenband.

He was detained - almost literally it seems - at an IOC function where bigwigs like the Governor General Sir William Deane and former Prime Minister Bob Hawke got to shake hands with the wonderboy.

But he also laid eyes, for the first time in almost three weeks, on Ken and Margaret, a couple from from Milperra, in Sydney's suburban southwest whom he calls mum and dad.

It can be hard to remember that champions are human, particularly when they stumble at the gate to glory. But what's harder to remember about Ian Thorpe - he stands so tall on those size 17 feet - is that he's a boy.

And his parents are as proud as any mum and dad would be of a 17-year-old son who turned out good.

Jack, a retired council worker, and Margaret, who teaches at a local primary school with his sister Christina, are devoted spectators at Thorpie's swim meets. At the Olympic Aquatic Centre, they have seats about two-thirds of the way down the pool, just behind the pack of photographers, which gives them a good view of their golden boy.

The closeness of the Thorpe family is widely acknowledged here. Olympic superstar Dawn Fraser, who has sat near them in Thorpe's meets, wrote in a newspaper column that the family bond gives him an edge.

"I've always been struck by the joy [his family] gets from his swimming," she wrote. "It's a thrill for me to watch them."

Certainly, Ian impresses as the product of a good upbringing: open, self-effacing, polite and well-spoken. Not a trace here of the temperamental, pampered teenage star.

Thorpie is the kind of youngster Sydney people call a "top bloke." You can tell it by the company he keeps. He could rub shoulders with stars - in fact he's been seen out with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, both of who left voice mail messages for him on Sunday after he won two golds - but he maintains close contacts wth his schoolmates. And he has a special friendship with 14-year-old Michael Williams, a cancer patient who he describes as "pretty close to a little brother" and who joined him at the poolside on Sunday.

Ken and Margaret have had no such luck. Lacking the all-important laminated accreditation pass which allows access to Olympic venues, they queue up with the other spectators - although they won't have wanted for free tickets - and they only talk to their lad on his mobile phone.

That's what made Monday so special. If Thorpie didn't find the GG and the Silver Bodgie a thrill, he at least got to see his parents up close and personal.

"I actually spoke to my parents for the first time in person in the whole event tonight," he told me. "It was pretty special for me [because] I hadn't seen them since the start of the meet and for the two weeks beforehand. So it was good to see them and get to hear their feelings about what I've achieved over the last two days.

"They were just as proud of my performance tonight as they are every time I race."