Magnussen: How Titmus’ win sets the tone for the swim team and how she could be ‘greatest ever’

Fresh off watching the swim of the century, James ‘Missile’ Magnussen tells Matty Johns about the impact of Ariarne Titmus’ gold medal win on the rest of the Australian swim team and more.

Off the back of watching the swim of the century, James ‘Missile’ Magnussen breaks down Ariarne Titmus’ incredible gold medal win, declaring “if Titmus goes two, four, eight, just the greatest ever,” on the Matty and the Missile podcast from Paris.

As Ariarne Titmus became the third Australian female to defend her gold medal at back-to-back Games, Magnussen details how she did it.

“She doesn’t seem to feel the pressure of the moment,” Magnussen said on the podcast.

“The way Ariarne swam that race, at the 250m mark, she dropped the hammer, she picked up the six beat kick and saw (Katie) Ledecky go out to just over a body length, you could’ve stopped the race there and given her the gold medal.”

“What it did was use a bit of gas, and you would’ve seen in the last 50m it wasn’t super obvious to the naked eye but her shoulders were going bright red which means she was lactating hard and Ledecky and (Summer) McIntosh were also dying off in that last 50.”

MATTY AND THE MISSILE: Matty Johns and James Magnussen join forces in Paris to take you inside the world’s greatest sporting event. Listen to their podcast below:

Matty Johns and James Magnussen reflect on Australia’s day one in Paris. Picture: Adam Head

For the Aussie swim team, a momentum swing doesn’t get much bigger than what took place on night one, with the huge start to set the tone for the rest of the week.

“The whole swim team will draw confidence from that swim, the same that the whole swim team drew confidence from Ian Thorpe in 2000,” Magnussen said.

“Similarly to Ian Thorpe, she’s a leader in the team, she may not be in the leadership group but since she’s our superstar, we look to her, she’s a barometer of our emotions, of our success.”

“For all the other athletes, if Ariarne hadn’t won that race they’d be thinking, is our preparation right? Is our coaching right? Have we come over here too early? Are we used to the time zones? You start to question things.”

“Ariarne, unflappable, the rest of the swim team will look at that and go, yep we’re on.”

Johns and Magnussen heard real time reactions from the legend Dawn Fraser and Titmus’ parents after the momentous swim.

“She actually swam so fantastic tonight, it was good to see because she’s been training very hard for it, and she’s now set that record,” Fraser said.

“She won’t sleep tonight, she might get half an hour, an hour, I know what it’s like but she’ll come up really fresh in the morning because her mind will be thinking about the race tomorrow and what she has to do.”

A sense of relief for the Titmus family. Picture: Sarah Stier/Getty Images

“Relief without a doubt, with about 25m to go, we knew there was no way known they could catch her and we knew she would take off. In that moment, I actually shook, the relief, the enormity of the occasion, it actually came true so it was just wonderful,” Steve Timus said.

“I was a bit worried, there was so much pressure going into it and that’s not a criticism at all, it’s just us Aussies love our sport and want to get behind our athletes,” Robyn Titmus added.

“As a family to be able to witness that gutsy, courageous swim, was just phenomenal.”

Listen to the full podcast to hear Johns and Magnussen discuss how the Boxall conflict could play out this week, a look at the Boomers historic win over Spain and more.

Plus how the Olympic village is reportedly 60 per cent vegan according to the Missile, “you can’t win gold with salad.”