Ariarne Titmus sees off McIntosh and Ledecky on golden night in the pool for Australia
The 2019 world championships. The Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The 2022 Commonwealth Games. Last year’s world championships. Since 2018, Australian middle-distance swim star Ariarne Titmus has not lost a 400m freestyle final at an international race.
She certainly was not going to start on Saturday night, during the opening evening of swimming finals at the Paris Olympics. To the above list Titmus can now add Paris 2024 after seeing off Canadian prodigy Summer McIntosh and American swim legend Katie Ledecky to win Australia’s first gold medal in the pool of this Games.
It had been billed as one of the marquee race of the swim program in Paris – the race of the decade, even the century. It was supposed to be a nail-biting contest. Instead it was a coronation. Titmus executed her race plan flawlessly, leading at every turn. McIntosh pushed her hard, but the Australian had half a body length at halfway and ultimately won by almost a second.
“I feel relieved,” Titmus said following the race. “It’s a different feeling winning it again after the first time. I know what it takes to be an Olympic champion, I know how hard it is racing in these circumstances at an Olympic Games, it’s not really like anything else. The noise and atmosphere and pressure and village life definitely makes performing well hard. But I’m really happy to come out on top.”
Having defended her Tokyo 400m crown, the Tasmania-born swimmer became the first Australian woman since Dawn Fraser to defend an individual Olympic title in the pool.
“I can’t really believe that’s me to be honest,” she said. “I just look at myself and I’m so normal – I just love swimming, love getting out and representing our country and having fun. I hope no-one looks at me any differently – I’m just the same old goofy Tassie girl, out here living out her dream.
“I hope it goes to show that anyone can do what they want to do if they work hard and believe in themselves. Here I am – I’m from little old Lonny [Launceston], town of 90,000, and I’m out here living the dream. I hope that inspires young kids back home.”
Less than an hour later, the Australian women’s relay team continued the golden evening for the Dolphins with an emphatic victory in the 4x100m freestyle. It is an event Australia has won at every Olympics since Beijing 2008, and they showed no sign of losing their crown. The Australian quartet touched ahead at every changeover, before Emma McKeon anchored the team to victory and an Olympic record over a fast-closing China.
Titmus’s win continued a strong start for Australia, after Elijah Winnington won silver in the men’s 400m freestyle in what was a frenetic, open affair in the first medal race of the meet. It was a moment of redemption for the 24-year-old, who competed in Tokyo with high hopes only to finish an unexpected seventh in the final. Winnington closed strongly to finish half a second down on Germany’s Lukas Märtens; Winnington’s compatriot Sam Short finished fourth.
Asked earlier on Saturday what he had learned from the Tokyo experience, Winnington said he just wanted to have fun. “To go out and enjoy it,” he said. “I think the biggest one is that people actually don’t really care. In Tokyo I thought that everyone really did.
“I was saying to my mate Jack before coming to this meet, when people were saying they were really nervous,” he continued. “I said: ‘Well I’ve gone to the Olympics and experienced possibly the worst thing that could ever happen and I’m still here, I’m still swimming fast and I’m still having fun. I want to go out tonight and have fun and see what happens. If that’s a good result, that’s a good result.”
A good result it was – continuing a proud Australian tradition in a race that was once synonymous with the legendary Ian Thorpe.
In the first races of the evening, the women’s 100m butterfly semi-final, Australian Emma McKeon progress through to the final on Sunday in sixth-placed. McKeon won bronze in the event in Tokyo; it is her only individual event on the program in Paris.
Titmus, meanwhile, will now turn her attention to the 200m freestyle, with a final on Monday; she is the defending Olympic champion, but will face tough competition against teammate and 2023 world champion Mollie O’Callaghan. Later in the meet Titmus will face Ledecky again in the 800m freestyle – the American has won the past three consecutive Olympic golds, but will face a mounting challenge from the in-form Australian.
“It’s fun racing the best in the world – it gets the best out of me,” Titmus said. “I really hope that all the hype lived up to its expectation.”