Ian Thorpe's close brush with death

Australia's Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe could have been on the top of the World Trade Center at the time of the attack if he hadn't forgotten his camera.

The Australian teenager had been on his way to the trade centre's observation deck when he suddenly remembered he had left his camera in his hotel.

Thorpe went back to fetch the camera and was about to return to the trade centre when the first hijacked plane crashed into the twin towers.

"He was probably 20 minutes away from being there," Frank Turner, one of Thorpe's managers, told Australian radio on Thursday.

"He was shocked...a few minutes later and who knows what could have happened."

Thorpe won three gold medals at last year's Sydney Olympics and another six golds at this year's world championships in Japan.