Australian 20-year-old Ariane Titmus completed her comprehensive dethroning of America’s freestyle queen Katie Ledecky in Tokyo with another strong finish to win 200m freestyle gold, adding to her 100m title won on Monday. For the first time in Ledecky’s Olympic career, she did not medal.
There was to be no gyrating of handrails or startling of innocent volunteers this time. Titmus’s coach Dean Boxall went viral two days ago for his enthusiastic celebrations; here he raised a couple of triumphant fists and issued a few reserved high-fives in tribute to her prodigious talent.
Ledecky has been the dominant force in women’s freestyle since grabbing the world’s attention with 800m gold at London 2012 aged only 15. A string of world titles followed at 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m, as did four more Olympic gold medals in Rio. But there was a hint of things to come when a teenage Titmus took Ledecky’s 400m world crown in 2019, and she delivered on that promise here in Tokyo with devastating effect.
What was so striking was the way Titmus measured her move, not derailed by the gap opening ahead of her. Titmus and Ledecky were neck and neck for most of the four lengths, trailing Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey who went out fast. But in the final 50m Titmus showed her strength, powering to the front to finish in 1min 53.50sec, an Olympic record. Haughey held on for silver and Canada’s Penny Oleksiak won bronze.
All is not lost for Ledecky, whose best event has been newly added to the Olympic schedule for Tokyo, the 1500m freestyle. But the final’s timing, just an hour or so after her 200m exertions, will leave her at a disadvantage swimming against fresher rivals. Ledecky and Titmus will go head to head against in the 800m on Saturday.
“On the last lap I knew I had Katie (Ledecky) covered but Siobhan was the person that was there and I felt my legs starting to go but I’m happy to get it done,” said Titmus. “I don’t think it will sink in until I go home and have a rest – when you’re in this situation you have to compartmentalise everything. Once I stop racing I will release everything, but now I’m thinking about going onto the relay and the 800m, I don’t want to celebrate too much but I am really proud of what I’ve achieved.
“I feel so fortunate to be here and to do what I love. I’m from a small town in Tasmania and it just goes to show if you believe you can do something you can 100 per cent do it if you work for it.”
There were no surprises in the men’s 200m butterfly where Kristof Milak of Hungary romped to a dominant victory, setting an Olympic record too. Malik was expected to win and looked totally unmoved doing it, while Japan’s Tomoru Honda celebrated silver and couldn’t have been more excited, grinning for the cameras and posing with peace signs.
