Titmus On Hometown Glory, Why 1:52.23 Didn’t Feel Like A WR Swim & The Separate Training Lives She & O’Callaghan Lead
Still panting from the fight and furious flight of a 1:52.23 World record in the 200m freestyle, Ariarne Titmus told us in Brisbane: “It’s exciting to do it in my hometown, in front of the hometown crowd, but it gives me really good confidence for the Olympics.”
Among the reasons why this, why now, Titmus turned to the hometown once more: “I’m sleeping in my own bed, there’s not much distraction around…”.
Confidence boosted, there would be no resting on laurels: ” … the world of swimming never stops and there’s always people that are swimming fast so you can never just expect that it’s going to come your way.”
Off the last turn, it was obvious that red line was so far behind Titmus’ duel with her St. Peters Western teammate that both she and Mollie O’Callaghan were about to shatter the latter’s 1:52.85 global standard set swhen claiming the World title in Japan last year.
Brisbane Results in full / Event Page
What went so right this day? “I’m just in pretty good form,” said Titmus. “My 400 was great. I think I took confidence from that. I’ve taken confidence from my training the past six weeks, I’ve done some things in the pool that I haven’t done before.
“And so you have to use that, you have to really, going into a meet like this, not let any negative thoughts filter through and get into your mind. I’ve really just tried to stay as positive as I could, and I think that helped.
How Titmus & O’Callaghan Lead Separate Training Lives
Asked if she’d been motivated by Mollie’s World mark last year in a race in which Titmus took silver, the new holder of the standard said:
“Honestly No. To be honest, we really don’t see what each other does during training. We’re very separate. She trains for sprint events, I trained for middle distance freestyle. So it’s honestly quite separate and looking at a world record. I don’t look at who has it, I look at the time, and honestly that wasn’t really on my radar coming into this. I just really wanted to put together a great swim and have the chance to do it again in Paris.
Ariarne Titmus – Channel Nine screenshot
Had she raced with more confidence? Titmus replied: “Since Tokyo and coming into these games, and the preparation I’ve had over the past couple of years, I’ve always kind of had that belief in myself, but it’s one thing having that belief and it’s another thing actually doing it and putting races together that are world-class and competitive.
“So it does give me good confidence but the world of swimming never stops and there’s always people that are swimming fast so you can never just expect that it’s going to come your way.
It definitely looked like a World-record swim but had it felt like one?
“No, it just it felt like a good 200. It felt nice. I pushed but I didn’t really fade. But I think maybe the difference here is that I’m sleeping in my own bed, there’s not much distraction around, racing. I pretty much had a very normal day yesterday resting.
“It’s a very different environment to a world championships, which is very emotionally taxing. And I think just the conditions here are so conducive to swimming fast. So I think that’s probably the difference. My level of form is the same as well but I’m probably a bit more I’d say rested mentally for this one.”
Ariarne Titmus – photo by Delly Carr, courtesy of Swimming Australia