Book signing: Ian Thorpe - 'This is me'

I've long been a fan of our Australian Mens swimming team; although, admittedly, I was more of a fan at the start of the millennium, when Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Michael Klim, and Geoff (Skippy) Huegill were still in the game together. In fact, this group of men was the reason I started watching competitive swimming on TV in the first place (the first sport I ever willingly watched, actually). They are such strong sportsmen and did Australia proud in the FINA swimming championships and the Sydney and Athens Olympic Games. I, along with the rest of the sporting world, was quite sad about Ian Thorpe announcing his early retirement in 2006, so when he decided to make a comeback in time for the London Olympics, I was very excited indeed - swimming had not been really worth watching anymore without him and Pieter Van den Hoogenband.

Okay, so he didn't qualify for the Olympic Games this year; but who cares? He's back in the pool, which hopefully means that, with a bit more training, he'll soon be winning gold for Australia again (no pressure, Thorpey). But in the meantime, he's just released an autobiography, titled, This is me. I only just bought this book yesterday afternoon, so I've only read the first 18 pages of it, and can't give a book review just yet. I do feel like I should have read it before attending his book signing at the Dymocks bookstore in the city today though...





The man himself finally makes an appearance!

The turn-out was underwhelming. I probably shouldn't be saying this, and it might sound a bit selfish, but this is what I love about book signings at Dymocks - other than A4 printouts of instore appearance announcements on the store windows, there is little other promotion for these events, which helps to eliminate long queues on the day. Frankly, I think I'm too old now to arrive at a celebrity signing event 2 hours in advance to line up (yes, that has happened in the past - don't ask). Of course, I realise that most writers do not attract the same type of (crazy) fans as the entertainment industry celebrities do, bar the ones who get a lot of media exposure, like those who appear on popular reality TV shows, like MasterChef, but I did expect that even with low-level promotion, Ian Thorpe, being an Australian Olympic legend with world records and several gold medals under his belt, would somehow attract most of the local sports enthusiasts. Perhaps more people turned up later after I left.

I will be honest: he didn't look like he wanted to be there. It reminded me of the time when Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris (judges in the Australian MasterChef series) came to do a book signing at the Angus and Robertson bookstore in the city, to promote their joint cookbook, Your Place or Mine?. While Gary was cheerful and lovely as always, George was quiet, unsmiling, and unhappy-looking. The Thorpedo looked at me as though surprised, unbelieving, maybe a bit amused too, when I said that it was so good to finally get to meet him (like a, "Why would it be?" look). In an attempt to make conversation while he was signing my book, I said what I sincerely meant: that I was so glad to hear that he was swimming again. Again, I received an unexpected response: he looked up at me with an unreadable expression - was it scepticism? Annoyance? It was almost as though I had said something that was somehow offensive to him. I knew he was unhappy about my comment anyway, because he didn't say anything in reply, and just looked down again to finish scribbling down his autograph.

Did I miss something? Did he already decide to give up on swimming again, perhaps? I have got to read that book!

All smiles for the photo

......But at least he smiled for the photo! Or I would have been so sad, since the whole experience was not exactly how I pictured it would turn out :(