Ariarne Titmus Would Not Yield to Greatness En Route to Legendary Career
When Ariarne Titmus was trying to establish herself as an elite international swimmer, she faced one of the most daunting obstacles in the sport’s history. Katie Ledecky had become a dominating force in the mid-distance and distance freestyle races, essentially lapping the field over 400, 800 and 1500 meters. In the eight-lap event, Ledecky lowered the world record to 3:56.46 before any other woman had ever cracked 4:00 without the aid of a full-body polyurethane suit.
Titmus was unphased from the very beginning. In only her second year competing at senior-level international competitions, the then-17-year-old finished within a second of Ledecky in the 400 free at the Pan Pacific Championships. A year later, she pulled off a massive upset in the event at the Gwangju World Championships, prior to which no one had seriously considered the possibility that Ledecky would fall short in the 400.
News later emerged that Ledecky was ill at those World Championships, forcing her to scratch the 1500 free final and withdraw from the 200 free entirely, but Titmus would retain her edge on the American for the remainder of her career. Their epic showdown at the Tokyo Olympics pushed Ledecky to the second-fastest time of her career, but Titmus was even better down the stretch. Delivering in perhaps the most pressurized moment of her life gave Titmus the first of an eventual four Olympic gold medals.
Ariarne Titmus (right) with Katie Ledecky at the Paris Olympics — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
Over the next three years, more staggering highlights would follow as Titmus established a first-ballot Hall-of-Fame résumé. Her second Olympic gold was a come-from-behind effort in the 200 free in Tokyo. She twice lowered the world record in the 400 free, first beating Ledecky’s six-year-old mark at the 2022 Australian Championships. Summer McIntosh took the mark away from Titmus in March 2023, but Titmus stormed back to become the first swimmer ever under 3:56 with a dominating World Championship victory that July over McIntosh and Ledecky.
And in Paris, when Titmus again came out on top in the hotly-anticipated three-woman showdown, she became only the second Australian woman to defend an Olympic gold medal in swimming, joining the legendary Dawn Fraser (the group is now three, with Kaylee McKeown repeating in both backstroke events later in the meet in Paris).
Titmus stalked the 200 free world record for years, with the mark set by Federica Pellegrini during the supersuit era remaining slightly out of reach. Her Australian countrywoman Mollie O’Callaghan would actually get to the world record first, but Titmus finishes her career with the mark in her possession, having gone 1:52.23 at the 2024 Australian Trials.
Her career brought about Australia’s best-ever stretch in the women’s 800 free relay, beginning with an upset world-title win over the United States in 2019. The Aussies faltered as strong favorites at the Tokyo Games, but Titmus keyed a world-record-setting effort at the 2022 Commonwealth Games before delivering further gold medals at the 2023 Worlds and 2024 Olympics.
As for the 800 free, Titmus never won a major international title in the event, but she made Ledecky sweat out her third and fourth Olympic victories in the 16-lap event. Ledecky could never shake Titmus in the Tokyo final, finishing just 1.26 seconds ahead, and in Paris, they went stroke-for-stroke over the first three-quarters of the race before Ledecky finally broke away.
Now, Titmus has announced her retirement, choosing not to return to training following a break intended to last only one year. What she lacked for longevity in her career, Titmus more than compensated by being the best swimmer in the world for a stretch. She was named Female World Swimmer of the Year in 2022 while coming up just behind Aussie teammates on two other occasions. Competing against Ledecky at the end of her peak and McIntosh at the start of hers, Titmus won almost every time.
Looking back on Titmus’ career, she will forever be considered Ledecky’s fiercest rival. That should not diminish what she accomplished. Instead, her accomplishments are even more impressive since Titmus stared down the greatest female swimmer in history and became a legend of her own, making her one of the best to ever emerge from Australia’s proud swimming tradition.
