Swimming world championships 2019: Ariarne Titmus upsets Katie Ledecky in 400m freestyle

Australia’s Ariarne Titmus has inflicted the first defeat on Katie Ledecky in seven years.

Ariarne Titmus beat Katie Ledecky to gold in the women’s 400m freestyle at the world titles. Picture: Getty Images

Ariarne Titmus’ coach Dean Boxall knows she has enraged a tigress in defeating Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle at the world titles, fully expecting that the American champion will rebound dramatically for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

There was only one way for Titmus to defend herself in the face of Ledecky’s wrath at losing her first international distance race — that is, anything over 200m — since the 2012 London Olympics and that is by improving her times even further.

Ledecky, top, reacts after the race. Picture: AFP

“She has to go lower,” said a husky-voiced Boxall following one of the great swims of Australian sporting history. “Ledecky, she looks pissed off, angry. She’s going to come back. She’ll be like a caged elephant coming out. Is it great for Arnie to win? Yeah, sure. But what does it do for Ledecky? Ledecky is still the Olympic champion, she’s the world record holder. Arnie is still the underdog.”

At present, she is still two seconds off Ledecky’s world record.

Still, the question has to be asked: What impact will the manner of Titmus’ triumph have on Ledecky?

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She had fought back when the Australian, in total defiance of expectations, took the race out in under world record pace. The world looked on, applauding Titmus’ spunk but was not in the least surprised when Ledecky took over the lead at the halfway point. Even Titmus acknowledges that Ledecky’s third 100m is superior to her own and though she threw out the challenge yet again, she wasn’t at all taken aback when the American legend imperiously brushed it aside.

Ariarne Titmus reacts after beating Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle Final in South Korea. Picture: Getty Images

That should have been that. Brave challenge bravely repulsed. But then Titmus sensed something about Ledecky that gave her a glimmer of hope. Summoning all the countless kilometres she has done under Boxall’s tutelage, she threw out one last challenge and this time, there was, portentiously, no response from Ledecky.

The woman regarded as the greatest female swimmer of all time herself takes over at this point: “I just got to the last turn and felt like I just tightened up. My legs were just dead. Obviously, Ariarne took advantage of that.”

Ledecky and Titmus go head to head. Picture: AFP

Both Ledecky and her coach Greg Meehan both had attempted to depersonalize the challenge to her. She had mentioned Titmus not at all, Meehan only when virtually forced to by the Australian media and even then to suggest that all rivalry, any rivalry would be good for these championships – a comment that has not stood up particularly well in light of the Mack Horton-Sun Yang feud.

While they may not have acknowledged her before the meet, there is no doubt that Ledecky was fully across the Titmus threat. And now that the possible threat had revealed itself to be very real and very potent, the question is how Ledecky will truly respond. She has looked across the lane rope into Titmus’ mind and glimpsed a rival as focused and ferocious as she herself was back in the days of the London Olympics.

“This stings a little … unfamiliar and different,” said Ledecky, glancing down at the silver medal draped around her neck.

Titmus following her remarkable win. Picture: Getty Images

Certainly the swimming world reacted much as they would at the assassination of a queen.

Cate Campbell was in the warm-up pool when the 400m freestyle race reached its crescendo and paused in her preparation for the 4x100m freestyle relay to observe the battle. She and just about everyone else.

“I think that the entire warm-up pool stopped to watch that 50m,” said Campbell. “When you watched her in the last 25m swim away from Ledecky, there was a resounding ‘whoooo’. The people who hadn’t stopped put up their heads to see what was going on. It was such a mature swim and incredibly inspirational.”

Campbell and her 4x100m freestyle team-mates — sister Bronte, Emma McKeon and Brianna Throssell — then used that inspiration to win Australia’s second gold of the night. All four of them swam brilliantly to win a gold medal that perhaps didn’t come as easily as most had expected, but certainly Throssell was delighted. “This is my first gold at a world championships. Heck, it’s my first medal.”

Every event in which medals were up for grabs, Australia grabbed one on the opening night, with the men’s 4x100m freestyle quartet grabbing bronze in its race and, of course, Mack Horton returning to form to take out the 400m freestyle silver.