By: Eric Weinberg
A few weeks ago, swimmer Ariarne Titmus revealed that she would not be competing at the swimming world championships event because she simply did not feel like going. Ariarne Titmus is one of the best swimmers in the world and is doing very well for her young age of just 21 but will still miss this highly significant international swim meet.
Ariarne Titmus broke a world record last month and is in some of the best form of her young career, giving her a very high chance of winning another significant medal. There is also another hot topic on the table. One of her biggest rivals, Katie Ledecky, has dominated the sport for almost a decade. Titmus would have another showdown with Ledecky if she had chosen to attend worlds, but now she will not be able to. Titmus ignored these facts saying, “I just really wanted to think about the long term” and “I swim because I love it and I want to perform on the biggest stage, which for me is the Olympic Games.”
The rivalry between Titmus and Ledecky started when Titmus first rose towards the top of women’s swimming, at the worlds in 2019, where she upset Ledecky, who had won the event 15 times before. In 2021 Titmus again beat Ledecky at the Tokyo Olympics in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle events and won gold medals in both. If Titmus had chosen to attend worlds there would be another big showdown between the two.
Titmus is also “not most swimmers” according to the New York Times, as she often makes strange decisions in and out of the pool that are bold and selfish. For example, during the 2019 worlds in the 400-meter freestyle, towards the beginning of the race, Titmus let Ledecky pull ahead of her without any effort to try and keep up, a gutsy move that would allow Titmus to later gradually gain speed which ended up working and gave her the medal, beating out Ledecky. Not only does this reflect her confidence, but it also reflects how she likes to “focus on herself, not others.” She said that she does not mind that she will not be in the news or the media and will Ledecky may capture more medals without having her biggest competition in the next lane, but she thinks her decision will be better for herself. Although Ariarne Titmus may make some different decisions from most swimmers, she is still one of the best in the world right now. She has a very promising career ahead of her.