She broke the British 100 metres hurdles record of 1992 Olympic Champion Sally Gunnell at the games, running a personal best time of 12.80 seconds in the semi-final finishing 5th. She therefore did not make one of the top four qualifiers for the final. However, the 3rd placed athlete in this semi-final, Nataliya Shekhodanova of Russia, was subsequently disqualified after the final for doping offences which meant that also after the final Thorp was retrospectively upgraded to 4th place in the semi-final.[2][3] At the games she was also a part of the British team which finished 8th in the 4 x 100 metres relay final.
Thorp's British record stood for 15 years until it was broken in 2011 by Tiffany Porter.[7] Thorp said that she was "devastated" at losing her record to an American-born athlete. She said that she would have congratulated an established British athlete who took her record; at the time Jessica Ennis and Sarah Claxton both had personal bests of 12.81s.[8] Ennis later took the British record at the London 2012 Olympic Games.[9]
