When Ariarne Titmus stretched into the blue for that unfathomably long, lithe, final stroke in the pool in Tokyo, winning the 400-meter freestyle crown from five-time Olympic gold medallist Katie Ledecky, it was hard to know where to look. Was it at Ariarne, emerging from the pool, composed, barely breathless, to graciously thank her rival. “I wouldn’t be here without her,” she said. “She set the standard.” Or at the antics of her instantly, famously kooky coach, Dean Boxall, in the stands. Or at the live cross on our telly screens to the Gold Coast, where her dad Steve, mum Robyn, little sister Mia and grandparents Sandra and Kevin hugged and kissed, hoarse from cheering, in a rush of adrenaline, laughter and tears.
It took Steve back to the first national championship race Ariarne – or Arnie as her family affectionately calls her – won, at 13, representing her home state of Tasmania.
“I remember when Arnie touched the wall,” he tells The Weekly, “we were going nuts cheering, and these Victorian kids sitting in the stands in front of us turned around and looked at us as if to say, ‘What? A Tasmanian’s not meant to win. This is crazy’.”
There was a collective double-take. “No one knew who I was,” Ariarne admits. Now, at 21, she’d beaten the best in the world. And this time everyone knew her name.
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