We sat down with Ariarne Titmus, the 4x gold medalist at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Titmus explains how her life has changed since the Tokyo Olympics where she won 2 gold medals in the 200 and 400 free, specifically how there is much more outside pressure to perform. However, Titmus says she’s pretty good at blocking it out most of the time, which showed with the freestyle aces performances in the UK. Titmus successfully defended her Commonwealth titles in the 400 and 800 free as well as added 200 free gold to her resume this week.
Titmus says looking toward the Paris Olympic Games, she’s more motivated than ever. “I’ve experienced those absolute highs at the Olympics. You can’t really describe it once you’ve experienced it and you want to experience it again and again and again. I think that’s my motivator now.”
I give Titmus and Boxall a lot of credit for her mastery of pacing in the 400 free. That’s how she beat Ledecky, by not chasing her but sticking to her game plan, knowing that she could outsprint Katie in the last 50.
Now that Titmus has beaten Katie twice and has the WR, she will be the favorite the next time they meet. And yes, the pressure will feel like a ton of bricks on her shoulders.
Katie and her coaches will have to come up with a way to beat Titmus. That’s a very tall order if you ask me.
It’s funny because the pressure could go either way. Is there more pressure because she’s defending champion and WR holder? Or has she already achieved so much that winning again isn’t as important, whereas if she lost the first time it might have been her only chance?
Yes it’s a tall order but if someone gonna do it its gonna be Ledecky and I think someone posted Ledecky splits in 800 and 1500 and she’s definitely going fast on her last 50 for sure it’s proves that her training with Bobby Finke since moving to Florida is going well.
She’s skipping short course Worlds. Bummer
I could see Summer breaking her WR if she goes
Me too. Its not that strong and Summer is about as fast Titmus was when she set it.
I was surprised there wasn’t a question about tactics and pacing. She won both Tokyo races during the final 50 then switched up and broke the world record this year going out sub 1:57. Also something regarding the 200 relay split and if that motivates her toward chasing that record. Titmus seemingly limits herself to two chances per year. She treats Australian Trials like a major then the target meet depending on year…Olympics, Commonwealth or worlds.
Commonwealth Games are such a blast to watch. The most laughable aspect of this site is all the Americans who define Commonwealth Games solely via comparative times in swimming. Meanwhile watch something like the last two laps of Elish McColgan in the 10,000 to… Read more »
Continuation:
In this regard it is interesting to look at the results of her 200 FR event. Despite the impressive relay win with the new world record she wasn’t faster than she was last season. The long expected by swimming community 1:52 that she showed in relay was not really faster than her 1:53.5 individual race in Tokyo.
Look how identical her flat splits are in those two races:
1:53.50 ( 27.04 – 28.81 – 28.85 – 28.80)
1:58.82 (0.31 – 26.32 – 28.77 – 28.96 – 28.77)
It also can be noted that her best race of the season (1:53.3) was done in exactly same manner
1:53.31 (0.74 – 26.77 – 28.80 – 28.95… Read more »
Very strangely, I agree to an extent. The 1:52.82 was very impressive, but not that much faster than her flat start PB, so you would expect she is capable of even faster.
She did comparatively very little training in the past 12 months compared to the previous 12 months, but still broke a WR in the 400. Will be very interesting to see where she goes from here.
Ariarne Titmus wasn’t really sincere in this interview talking about her goals. All her meets this season were chosen to be out of competition and after Olympic gold medals the goals were definitely the world records that she was very close to last season.
After emotions of CWG competitions and excitement of finally seeing in the W200FR the 1:52 in the results table got settled it is time to look soberly if she got faster in this her major meet of the season than she was in Tokyo.
Despite there were some emotional opinions that indeed she was faster the numbers don’t prove that. I would say that progress wasn’t detected, but she has remarkably unusually densely populated… Read more »
The goals this season were not world records. You invented that via conventional wisdom and as vehicle to denounce anything less than a record. Titmus emphasized during September 2021 that she needed a long break from swimming and also that she didn’t expect to be nearly as fast in 2022 as 2021. I cited and specified those interviews and quotes at the time. She also emphasized that Commonwealth Games was her 2022 goal. She said she placed a lot of emphasis on 2023 worlds leading to Tokyo. She didn’t mention 2022 worlds at all.
The 400 world record was a combination of 3 variables: much better shape than she expected given scant months of focused training, first event of… Read more »
You can smell the fear!!!!!
Yozhik gonna Yozhik
Exactly how many drinks have you had?
Ah Yozhik is upping his attacks on Ariarne.
Shouldn’t you continue attacking Summer Mackintosh since she will threaten Ledecky in 200,400, 800?
and since she’s dominating a “weak” event in the 400 im?
I have no doubt that Yozhik will say that.
Very short sighted view, what aren’t you looking at?
She’s going to 2023 Worlds 😍
Of course she is. Everyone is. She skipped Worlds this year (as did about 10 Olympic medallists) because of the COVID scheduling.
She skipped Worlds this year because it holds little importance to her plan.
What I meant was that if COVID hadn’t added an additional WCs out of nowhere then she wouldn’t have skipped any of the properly scheduled ones.
Could be passing of the torch from KL to AT
Katie won 4 world titles this year
That’s unlikely and Ledecky is still swimming better than ever this year.
I don’t think you can say “better than ever” when she hasn’t come close to any of her records
I wonder what Lisa will say when Ledecky gets pushed down to bronze in the 400 next year.
Brave call Troyy!!!!
We will come up with some good excuses between now and then. The thing is when you get to those big meets sometime strange things can happen. Would be great if everyone shows up in peak shape and races their best then no excuses.
Excuses are fair & can be used, but the bottom line is who touch the wall first.
I learn that after RIO Olympics. We went into RIO as favorites in some events
Some choked, Cate Campbell, Cameron McEvoy
Some were sick Emily Seebohm
Others were just beaten by someone better on the day. Mitch Larkin by Murphy.
I don’t know what are you on about but I still say it’s still gonna be between her and titmus with Summer in the races racing for the win in 400 and Ledecky not gonna settle for third places like all of her race and the stats that she has zero bronze at wc is really strong
She has zero bronze at the Olympics because she came fifth in the 200. She would have a bronze if she was faster.
Yeah that’s unlikely cause that’s 200m free final last year for me was like a one off result and if she really go out on that race she would have races for the win and at worst win silver and the reason she gets that fifth is because she was saving her energy for the 1500 in a few hours later
Yes, she deliberately lost the 200 free to save energy for the 1500. Sure.
Lol I didn’t say deliberately lost a race to save her energy and you just said that out of nowhere and who would be crazy enough to lost a race especially in the Olympics final and you can clearly see that 1500 was on the same day as 200 and she clearly chose not to go 100% on 200 just like she did in 400 and clearly last year was not her best Olympics even though she managed to win two gold.
Lets put it this way, if a 2016 version of Ledecky was to swim, the 2022 Ledecky would be in 4th place in Paris.
So she can’t be swimming better than ever.
It’s clearly you don’t understand what I’m talking about and to compared the time from 2016 to 2022 shows how desperate you are and she definitely improved her time in 800 and relay since the last few years and her other times are looking good too and that’s what I’m mean by better .
You are right I don’t understand what you are saying, first you say Ledecky is ‘better than ever’, everyone shows you facts that 2016 was Ledecky’s peak, but now you saying she is better than last few years.
Confused.
She has zero bronze in Worlds because she didn’t swim it
But of course facts don’t matter to you
Lol she has zero bronze cause if you you look at her race usually she races to fight for the win and if she didn’t win she usually gets the second second place and that’s how good she is
the 200 is ledecky’s weakest event. she only has 2 global titles, which were won in her peak (2015-2016). outside of 2016 which was her best year, she’s never broken 1:55 in an international final, her outstanding relay splits and in-season 1:54s notwithstanding. she was never dominant in the event, with pellegrini finishing 0.16 behind in 2015 (and sjostrom holding the fastest time of that year) and sjostrom trailing ledecky by just 0.35 in 2016. ledecky has fallen short of silver more times than she has won a silver medal. her only silver was in 2017, then she won bronze at 2018 pan pacs and was 5th last year.
even if she was at her absolute peak (2016) she would… Read more »
Yeah her best times in 800 and 400 this year is probably her best times I think since Rio but she maybe off her best times in 800 but she still a way ahead everybody in that event and I think nobody gonna beat her in 800 and of course there’s gonna be a competition in 400 as we saw last year and this year but yeah I agree her weakest is 200 but for sure making hypothetical point about last year 200m final is useless but at the same time it is the Olympics and even though she’s more focused on 1500 last year that 200 m final seems to me like to save her energy for 1500 m… Read more »
so you acknowledge that it’s not a good idea for ledecky to swim the 200, that her 200 will never be as good as it can be while she targets the 1500, but you still play the coulda/shoulda/woulda game?
When I talked about a pointless hypothetical, I wasn’t talking about past results. applying this to past results is pointless no matter who you are talking about. I was talking about future results, which I made abundantly clear in my argument:
“harping on about what she could do in the 200 moving forward is ultimately a pointless hypothetical”
moving forward, as in, in the future.
you claim to accept every premise of my argument, but you still can’t put all the points together… Read more »
That is the longest run-on sentence I’ve ever encountered. There were about 6 different statements in one sentence with no punctuation. As a bonus, they were all wrong lol
Better than ever doesn’t mean you have to necessarily break the wr and her time in 800 is four second faster than last year and still the only person going below 8.10 and she just swims her fastest time in relay and won all her events at the world and I think she and titmus the only freestyle swimmer that is a only above everyone else right now
You have a curious definition of “better than ever”.
It’s clearly everyone in here have their own definition of that word and after what happened in the last few years since 2019 , she is looking quite good.
“She is looking quite good” is a very different statement to “better than ever”. She is swimming slower than she was in 2016, and the margins for victory are smaller. She is not “better than ever” by any definition. That doesn’t mean she isn’t swimming amazing. It just means she’s not matching her almost inhuman 2016 year.
By the way I’m not bringing 2016 into this cause that 800 is like once in a lifetime swimming and 2016 is like one of her best performance ever and I’m not comparing that and her time is definitely improves this year than the last year and even better than 2019 and sure her time is not matching her time in 2016 but her 800 is quite good with the relay is really one of her best and that’s why I mean with better than ever for a swimmer at her age
You are using the phrase “better than ever”. That means you think she is swimming better than she ever has… and she clearly isn’t. If she isn’t better than her 2016 self, she isn’t better than ever. I don’t think that can be explained any more clearly but you’re just not getting it.
You do know I’m not comparing it to 2016 which is her best swims ever and I’m not using the word best and clearly you’re the one that really not getting it and for sure titmus time in 200 and 400 is slightly better than her but other than that her times in 800 and 1500 and especially her relay split is better than the last few years and that’s why I’m mean better than ever when she’s getting older and it seems that you’re using 2016 as the standard time to compared which I’m not
“You do know I’m not comparing it to 2016 which is her best swims ever“
you just used “ever” in reference to her 2016 performances. which means that you accept that for ledecky’s 2022 performances to be better than ever, they have to be faster than her 2016 times
She’s not swimming better than ever when she’s nowhere near her PBs
It’s clearly that you don’t like her when you say it like that and you know what I mean is that she’s literally improves her time even though it’s not a wr especially in 800 free and also in relay with her fastestvtime and it proves her she’s going to nesty is working.
For her to be swimming better than ever she needs to by definition be swimming faster than Rio Olympics.
And that’s not my definition of better than ever and I would be using the word best swimming ever by her this year if I’m gonna compared to 2016 and by better than ever I mean she has been swimming better this year than the last few years I think since 2019
Wtf lol
I admire Ledecky and I always said she’s the female GOAT.
Meanwhile, you just hate every non-American swimmers.
SAD.
Well I guess you just want to put a word in someone mouth and I don’t think I said I hate them and sure everyone have their own preference but I also gonna give them a credits where it’s due and what are you doing right now is just twist the word I’ve said you just really confused
Titmus isn’t next in line for the torch in long distance, and she’s already overtaken Ledecky in mid-distance
1.53.9 and 3.58 do not look like a solid contender for gold and 15.30 and 8.08 yes
I don’t know what you mean? Whose times are you talking about, because the times you mentioned don’t match Titmus or Ledecky??
Titmus has been 1:53.08 and 3:56.40 this year, and Ledecky has been 1:54.50 and 3:58.15.
I think 1.54.50 is not her fast times and I believe she can go faster like she did in the relay with mid 1.53 in 200m and I would say the same with 400 where she can improves her time but overall her times is still good and that’s I think ledecky and titmus is top 2 right now in freestyle swimming
Lisa honey: the things you write don’t make sense.
Firstly I’m almost certain Ledecky won’t swim the 200 in Paris. If she does, sure, she could be in contention for a medal and maybe even gold depending on how it plays out. But you don’t need to repeatedly say how you know she will swim much faster.
She will swim the 400 but won’t be the favourite.
No one is saying Ledecky is bad. You seem to interpret any comment about Ledecky or Titmus as a personal insult to Ledecky. People are just saying that she’s not the favourite in mid-distance anymore. Anyone saying Ledecky is dead in the water is obviously wrong.
What are you talking about and after what we saw last year with titmus last year and she and titmus is the only the person that has beaten summer this year of course she is the favorite along with titmus and summer for a three-way battle and by favorite I mean not only her but also titmus and summer and I hope you understand what I’m talking about .
It looks like it cause she has the world records right now but Ledecky
is competitive and looking good in this events too so I’m looking forward for the races along with Summer
Easy to forget she has only been to one Olympics…..I am sure she looks forward to her second one with so much more experience.
It’s actually pretty easy to remember she has only been to one Olympics. Come back and chat when Arnie and Summer win individual gold medals in each of three Olympics in a row in the same event (or any event) starting at the age of 15. And then we can have a nice chat. Oh wait…