Tokyo 2021 Olympics: Ariarne Titmus undoubtedly the Games’ biggest star
Her battles with Katie Ledecky have captivated Olympic fans worldwide and now golden girl Ariarne Titmus is poised to cash in on her new-found notoriety.
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Ariarne Titmus’ management group are exploring plans to tap her potential around the world after she twice defeated American superstar Katie Ledecky.
Titmus is managed by IMG whose American bosses have already been in contact with Titmus’ Australian agent David Malina to discuss her path post Games following her twin golds in the 400m and 200m freestyle in which she beat Ledecky and her silver to the same swimmer in the 800m on Saturday.
“Obviously IMG is a global firm and Ariarne is considered a global athlete after she beat Ledecky who may be the best female swimmer of all time,’’ Malina said.
“NBC even sent a firm crew over here in 2019 to track her progress. We think it is wonderful that she is recognised globally and feel there is a lot of potential there.
“The thing is she is still only 20 and all going well will compete in three Olympics in seven years.
“The Australian swimmers have done really well this week and she is in a great position to benefit from that.
“In can be difficult for Olympic sports competing in an Australian market where you have other athletes who have regular seasons but we are really excited about her future.’’
Titmus has four major sponsors — Harvey Norman, Bridgstone, Speedo and Nike.
The sponsorship deals offered to Olympic athletes are far less than what they were two decades ago when the liked of Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett and Kieren Perkins would earn seven figures annually from private deals.
Stephanie Rice landed a $700,000 deal with Channel 7 after her three gold medals at the Beijing Olympics but many of the big deals have vanished.
But this Games has seen a spike in the popularity of swimming that could revitalise their standing in the marketplace.
Titmus will return to Australia with her next planning mission for her 21st birthday dinner on September 7 a far less stressful assignment than getting ready for the Olympics.
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It’s tradition at every Olympics to crown the star of the show. Nadia Comaneci, Michael Johnson, Flo-Jo, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles.
Sometimes the marquee drawcard is obvious. Sometimes they are identified even before the Games begin and their images are plastered on billboards, TV ads and posters all over the world months before the first starting gun is fired.
But Tokyo has been different. No Bolt. Gymnast Biles is out. Naomi Osaka had potential after her starring role in the opening ceremony but her flame went out when she was bundled from the tennis tournament in the early rounds.
The world media is looking around the various stadiums for someone to adore and it’s becoming increasingly obvious they don’t need to look any further than the new star of Australian swimming.
Ariarne Titmus is destined to be an athlete for the ages.
Her story is as much showbiz as it is extraordinary swimming. She has the rock star coach Dean Boxall who’s celebrations poolside are now a meme and a tshirt and she even has the Hollywood nickname, Arnie, The Terminator.
She is engaged in one of the toughest head-to-head battles with one of the greatest swimmers of this generation in American Katie Ledecky, and she is winning.
Her battle with Ledecky has been the biggest talking point on US broadcasting giant NBC and now everyone wants to talk to her — including the Chinese.
Two individual gold medals and one relay bronze isn’t the most medals won by an individual athlete. Not even close.
But it is the way she won, and won at her first Olympics that has made the world sit up and take notice. In the 400m freestyle final — watched by billions and one of the biggest Olympic audiences ever in the US — she stalked Ledecky and ran her down in a cat and mouse swim for the ages.
It was intense and, to the Americans at least, unexpected. She followed with the 200m scorcher two days later and after tears of relief on international TV her marketable value was assured. She can bank on it.
The reaction to Titmus’ triumph has been pure madness in the sweetest sort of way for her parents, Steve and Robyn.
Steve, a 20-year journalist and former news reader, did 40 interviews in the day after her first triumph and many more since.
Time after time he can be heard answering numbers he doesn’t recognise and saying “right … I’m OK but let’s go now’’ because he knows any attempt to reschedule could be swamped by other requests.
On Thursday morning he sat alone “just taking it all in’’ as he watched the Games highlights on television but his phone rang again and he was off into interview mode for the umpteenth time this week.
He had not had a chance to read the expansive media coverage of his daughter and, as he sifted through the internet, the moment which moved him most was when Ariarne shed tears as she met her coach after the second gold.
“That was the moment when everything really sank in,’’ he said.
Parents of swimmers could have learned a lot from little pearls dropped in these interviews about how to raise a champ … let the coach do the coaching, be there at 4.30am when the alarm rings, eat the right foods, encourage them to switch off from swimming at home, let them be their own person.
The Titmus plan is almost identical to the Ash Barty plan.
It’s about support without suffocation.
Banned from attending the Olympics, the parents gathered at a Noosa resort and the room in which they assemble has gained its own special spirit, with boxing kangaroos on the couches, water jets spraying in the pool outside and water hens circling for stray crumbs.
When Titmus was ploughed through the field for her second gold the roar was such that a scrub turkey was sent scurrying into the wilderness. At least one parent has said they felt more comfortable here than pool side at the Rio Olympics.
On Wednesday night the families went to the iconic and reclusive Makepeace Island where host Stuart Giles opened a five figure bottle of champagne in their honour.
“I looked up at the moon and thought is this really happening,’’ one parent said.
“The Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be a nightmare. Honestly for us it is the dream of a lifetime.’’
Neither her parents knew it at the time, but their first born daughter was destined to be an Olympic champion.
Born just eight days before the opening ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she was being breastfed by her mother Robyn while she was watching Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett and Susie O’Neill on the television winning gold for Australia.
Like most Australians, Titmus was taught to swim at a young age so she could play safely in the water during her family’s summer holidays, but she was fascinated by watching older kids compete.
When she was seven she asked her parents if she could join a swim club and they agreed, unaware of just how good she would turn out to be.
By her own admission, Titmus wasn’t the most naturally talented swimmer but she loved training and by the time she was eight, she had won her first medal, at a regional competition in her home state of Tasmania.
That was around the same time as the Beijing Olympics, where she watched Stephanie Rice win three gold medals. Four years later, she met Rice in person, and it was the lightning bolt moment that made her also want to be an Olympian champion.
She trained even harder and by the age of 13, she won her first national age title, an almost unheard of feat for a Tasmanian swimmer.
But that presented her family with a dilemma because there was no-one left in the Apple Isle capable of challenging her and pushing her to greater heights.
So after weighing everything up, her parents and sister Mia agreed to the difficult decision of selling their home in Launceston and move to Queensland, knowing that the odds of Ariarne actually becoming an Olympic champion were minuscule.
“As parents, we believe your responsibility is to be a great supporter and do what you need to and can for your children to be happy and chase their dreams,” her father Steve said.
“She hasn’t needed us to motivate her, she had that from a young age.”
It was an extraordinary sacrifice for the family to make, but it began paying off immediately after she started training under coach Boxall.
South African-born, Boxall is a throwback to Laurie Lawrence, an old fashioned mentor who wears his heart on his sleeve and instils in his swimmers the belief that they can achieve anything.
It was a perfect match for the quiet and unassuming Tasmanian and since joining him, she has emerged as one of Australia’s greatest middle distance freestyle swimmers, through a combination of hard work and a never say die approach.
“Arnie’s very focused and very determined and very dedicated and we admire that about her, but she’s also very humble and down to earth,” her father Steve said.
“When we’re at home, we don’t sit around talking about swimming, it’s a very normal household.
“When she’s at home, she’s just like any 20-year-old daughter. She still has to clean her room and help around the house.
“The only thing that’s different is that she can swim fast.
“She keeps a lot of her thoughts to herself but she’s proud to be inspiring the next generation and she believes that sport can help bring the world together.”
And if she needed any proof of her new-found status, she can look a little closer to home/
Perhaps the most telling recognition of her efforts is that The Hobart Mercury is running a survey on whether she now eclipses Ricky Ponting — Mr Untouchable — as the Apple Isle’s greatest sportsperson.
And it’s a close thing.
“For many Tasmanians, even putting another athlete’s name next to Ponting is considered sacrilege such is the reverence the former Australian captain is held in,’’ said Mercury sports editor Brett Stubbs.
“Many believe Ponting’s career has him still ahead of his fellow Launcestonian, but there are a growing number who see Titmus’ achievement in a truly global sport as not only the equal of Punter’s but superior.
“It is a debate of moment against longevity – Titmus stunning Olympics against Ponting’s dominance for more than a decade.
“However, there are still Tasmanians who think neither can hold a candle to David Boon and his remarkable achievement of drinking 52 cans on a flight from Sydney to London.’’
Enough said.
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