Ian Thorpe
Dawn Fraser
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Ian Thorpe leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Ian Thorpe at #4 and Dawn Fraser at #5.
The case for Ian Thorpe
The 'Thorpedo', the finest middle-distance freestyler of his generation and a national hero in Australia. Thorpe won five Olympic gold medals and 11 world-championship titles, dominating the 200m and 400m freestyle and repeatedly lowering the 400m world record toward the 3:40 barrier. At his home Sydney 2000 Games, aged 17, he won the 400m freestyle in world-record time and anchored a stunning relay victory over the United States. At the 2001 Fukuoka World Championships he won six gold medals. Renowned for his size-17 feet, immense reach and metronomic stroke, Thorpe combined precocious success with genuine longevity across two Olympic cycles, and remains, statistically and stylistically, one of the most complete freestylers the sport has produced.
The case for Dawn Fraser
The pioneering queen of sprint freestyle and one of the toughest competitors in the sport's history. Fraser became the first swimmer, male or female, to win the same event at three consecutive Olympics, taking the 100m freestyle at Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964. In 1962 she became the first woman to break 60 seconds for the 100m freestyle, and she set 27 individual world records across her career. She won eight Olympic medals (four gold, four silver) in an amateur era before the World Championships existed. Fierce and unruly, she was controversially banned for ten years after a flag-stealing prank in Tokyo, cutting short a career that might otherwise have yielded even more. Her three-in-a-row remains a landmark of durability.