And it took a world record performance from Dutchman, Pieter Van den Hoogenband, to deny Thorpe on a night where Australia emerged from the pool with a trio of silver medals.

Van den Hoogenband issued a stern warning a day earlier when breaking Thorpe’s 200m freestyle world record in the evening semi-finals, hours after the Australian set an Olympic record in the morning heats.

Van den Hoogenband’s victory was the first ever male swimming gold medal for Holland and he out-sprinted Thorpe in the final 50m when many believed the Australians staying power would see him snare the 200m and 400m freestyle double in addition to the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay.

Remarkably, the Dutchman’s time of 1min 45.35sec equalled his world record, set 24 hours earlier, with Thorpe 0.48sec behind in second place.

“I gave it my best shot and while I was a little disappointed with the time, I wasn’t with the result. I am not going to win every race I go in and I am not going to break a world record every time I swim. That’s just not going to happen, and everyone has seen that tonight,” said Thorpe.

It was later revealed by Australian medical director, Brian Sando, that Thorpe completed the race with an upper respiratory tract infection which cause headaches, a sore throat and a runny nose.

Leisel Jones became the youngest Australian swimming medal winner since Shane Gould at the 1972 Munich Olympics when runner-up to USA’s Megan Quann in the women’s 200m breaststroke.

Jones only turned 15 years of age just weeks prior to the Games and was only 0.44sec behind the gold medal winner. Afterwards, Jones’ coach Ken Wood declared that Jones would break the world record within two years, and she would be a “superstar of the future”.

“I didn’t think I would qualify for the Olympic team at the trials, let alone compete here and win a medal,” said Jones.

Matt Welsh completed the silver medal sweep when second in an Australian record time behind USA’s Lenny Krayzelburg in the men’s 100m backstroke.

Krayzelburg was a race hot-favourite and while Welsh tried to keep pace with him throughout, the American was a clear winner.

While there were some mixed emotions with the swimming results, there was jubilation at Darling Harbour when Maria Pekli snared Australia’s first judo medal since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics when third in the women’s 57kg class final.

In a courageous Games performance, Pekli earned a 3-2 split decision result over Italy’s Cinzia Cavazzuti after earlier losing a 3-2 semi-final split decision to eventual gold medallist Isabel Fernandez of Spain.

Pekli’s medal-winning performance was even more meritorious after she twisted a knee in the final seconds of her round one victory and had to be carried from the arena.

In the euphoria of her bronze medal, Pekli said about the injury; ”I can’t even feel it at the moment.”