Ian James Thorpe, nicknamed ‘Thorpedo’, has been an Olympic Gold Medal swimmer and one of the world’s best-ever middle-distance swimmers. Born October 13, 1982, in Sydney, Australia, Thorpe has completely dominated the 400 meter freestyle event since 1998, winning the event at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games, the 2001 Fukuoka World Championships and again in Athens. He has also won both the 200m and 800m freestyle (for which he holds the world record), and he is one of the fastest 100m freestylers in the world. Thorpe has pushed Australian relay teams to exceptional success, winning 4x100 and 4x200 freestyle relay golds in Sydney. In total, Thorpe has broken 22 world records so far. Thorpe won the 200 and 400 meter freestyle races at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece. He has won five Olympic gold medals, more than any other Australian.

After eighteen years the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, ‘Phantom of the Opera’, has become the longest running show in Broadway history. Besides being the longest-running show in Broadway history, the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ is also among the most successful entertainment productions of any kind ever. Across the world, ‘Phantom’ has made three point two billion dollars. You can compare that to the Hollywood movie, Titanic, which has made less than half of that figure. ‘Phantom’ originally opened to mixed reviews here, but eighteen years later it is still playing to packed audiences every night. For Andrew Lloyd Webber, last night’s recordbreaking performance was a sweet moment. At a post-show party at the Waldorf Astoria, where the British composer met his guests has said he was really excited by the production’s success and noted that ‘Phantom’ had taken the longest-running Broadway record from ‘Cats’ - another of his own musicals.