The nap that changed Tasmanian swimmer Ariarne Titmus’s world

2020 was going to be Ariarne Titmus’s year. She was set to star at the Tokyo Olympics and go lap-for-lap with female swimming’s greatest ever – only to have her immediate life completely changed during the course of a nap.

Silver medallist Katie Ledecky and gold medallist Ariarne Titmusduring the medal ceremony for the Women's 400m Freestyle Final at the 2019 FINA World Championships in South Korea. Picture: QUINN ROONEY/GETTY IMAGES

ARIARNE Titmus went to sleep on a Monday pre-training nap dreaming of Olympic gold and woke up to find her life turned upside-down.

Titmus, the Launceston born and raised and now Brisbane-based 19-year-old, had the chance to become Australia’s new golden girl of swimming in Tokyo later this year.

Instead, she woke up to news her Olympic dream had been postponed.

Swim star Ariarne Titmus. Picture: MARK CRANITCH

It felt like four years of meticulous preparation and training had been for nothing just four months out from the main event.

“I woke up from my nap on a Monday afternoon thinking I was going to training and I looked down at my phone and I had all these messages,” Titmus told the Sunday Tasmanian.

“At first I was pretty numb, I didn’t really have any emotions and I sat down to eat my lunch thinking I still had training on and then all the emotion came out.

“I was very upset and I don’t think I stopped crying the whole day.”

After the initial feeling of shock she was able to see benefits of an extra 12 months of preparations and the reasoning behind the delay and not just because of the obvious health and safety issues related to COVID-19.

“It is a four year cycle and I only had four months to go until the Olympics and we were really coming into the peak of our training, the last little stretch to the Olympics,” she said.

“I was pretty much at the peak of my training and training very well but to go from absolute full guns blazing to nothing, it was a bit of a shock.

“I’m used to it now and why the Olympics were postponed, not only because of the safety issue with coronavirus but also because some countries were more advanced in the spread of the virus.

“Other countries were already out of the pool three weeks before we were.

“People I would have to race hadn’t done any training for three weeks, I just felt if the Olympics were still on and I got to continue to train through, it wouldn’t be a fair playing field.

“I think it was the best decision for everyone to have the Olympics postponed, but now it is about resetting everything and trying to think of another plan going ahead.

“It is going to be a very different preparation now because there is no major meet this year and it is going to be 16 months to do one single prep.

“It is going to be juggling how we start and no one knows how much longer we are going to be out of the water for so that is the thing that is most challenging.
“If we had a bit more certainty we would be put at a bit more ease but to not know when is challenging.”

Ariarne Titmu competes in the Women's 800m Freestyle Final at the 2019 FINA World Championships. Picture: MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

Titmus is isolating with her family in Brisbane, filling in her time doing jigsaw puzzles, board games and artwork.

She deferred her exercise and sports science studies at the Queensland University of Technology to focus on the Olympics this year.

The isolation has resulted in Titmus not swimming for four weeks now with no return in sight — the longest stint away from the pool since she was 13.

She sprung from rising talent to international star at last July’s world championships in South Korea where she defeated American superstar Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle final.

The Tasmanian teenager became the first person to beat Ledecky in a major final, with the American undefeated since 2012 across the 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle and holding the world record in each event.

Ariarne Titmus at the 2019 FINA World Championships. Picture: MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

She acknowledges the thought of competing against Ledecky at the Olympics was a thrill.

“It is unbelievable, I feel very honoured to be put against her as a rival,” she said.

“I believe she is the greatest female swimmer of all time and without her I don’t think I would be swimming as fast as I am.

“I love that I have someone that can push me.

“I think the media really talk up the rivalry.

“There is no such rivalry or bitterness between us, we are just two girls that train very hard and love to race and just happen to be racing hard at the moment, which I love.

“I am very excited to have a tough race at the Olympics, I was looking forward to that but now it is just another year we have to wait.”

But her motivation for the sport, including the hours of training and the sacrifices, is much simpler than defeating swimming’s greatest ever female swimmer in Tokyo.

“To be honest, I just love swimming,” Titmus said.

“That’s why I started, I love the water, I love training, I love my squad and my friends I have at training and then to top it all off I love the feeling of representing my country and doing Australia proud and winning on the international stage.

“It is a feeling I don’t think you can describe unless you’ve felt it and I love that feeling. “That’s why I do it and I want to do things that push me to the limit and try to achieve things that I never thought I could achieve.

“That’s why I do it, but the driving force is because I love swimming.”