Ian Thorpe clocked the fastest 100m freestyle of his life to win his fourth medal of the Athens Olympics.

Swimming from lane eight, the 21-year-old took bronze in 48.56s behind Flying Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband and South African Roland Shoeman.

Van den Hoogenband, the reigning Olympic champion, clocked 48.17s for the gold, just ahead of Shoeman (48.23).

Thorpe's performance was 0.15s faster than his best for bronze at the Barcelona world championships a year ago.

"I guess I own the full set," said Thorpe, who now has five golds, three silvers and a bronze from two Olympics.

"I would have preferred gold but I didn't think that was going to happen."

Thorpe took the 200-400m freestyle double in Athens, beating van den Hoogenband for the 200m title, and won a silver in the 4X200m freestyle relay.

Thorpe has just one event to go in Athens, the medley relay on Saturday.

But Australia is expected to struggle to get onto the medal dais, with weak butterfly and breaststroke legs.

"For all the results that I've had here, it's been a sensational meet for me, I'm overwhelmed with the results," Thorpe said.

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