'Best-ever Thorpe re-drawing limits'

Australian teenager Ian Thorpe is the best swimmer ever, redefining boundaries like Tiger Woods in his sport, American swim team captain Josh Davis said on Tuesday.

Thorpe won the 400 metres freestyle and two relay gold medals as a 17-year-old in the Sydney Olympic pool last September.

Now 18, the 195cm, 100kg superstar set world records in the 200 metres freestyle and the 800m freestyle and also won the 100m and 400m titles at the Australian championships last month.

Davis believes Thorpe is doing for swimming what Tiger Woods is doing for golf.

"Thorpe's awesome," said Davis, 28, who won two freestyle relay silver medals behind the Australians at last year's Games.

"I think he's the best there's ever been. I really love watching him swim and it's a pleasure racing him. All you can do is keep trying."

Davis said a lot of American swimmers were stunned by Thorpe's two world records at the Australian championships.

"Everybody within the swimming community was checking their internet every day curious about the times that you all were doing in Australia and of course, we were pretty amazed at Ian's accomplishments," Davis said during a telephone hookup to promote Brisbane's Goodwill Games in August.

"The last 100 of his 800 (when Thorpe moved clear of Australia's Olympic 1,500m champion Grant Hackett), it really didn't seem like he was a human being."

Thorpe has set 13 world records over 200, 400 and 800m freestyle in the past two years.

If he can swim personal bests at the Goodwill Games in September he stands to win hundreds of thousands of dollars in world record bonuses.