By: Audrey Wang

While her rival is swimming at the world championships, Ariarne Titmus, the world’s best swimmer, will be asleep halfway across the world, and she has a perfect excuse to be. She decided that she didn’t need to be there.

During the world championship, while the women’s 400-meter freestyle final is started and finished, she’ll be sleeping halfway across the globe. With the race’s new world record holder coming out on top, Ariarne Titmus, in an interview by the New York Times, explains that at the time of the meet, which is 1:30 AM in Australia,“I’ll definitely be asleep.”

“I’ll probably look up the results, look at the splits, but I really won’t pay too much attention to it.” Titmus says. Even though she broke a world record recently, and the fact that there is a possibility of a clash in Hungary with her adversary, Katie Ledecky of the United States, who is a 15-time world champion. But this year, 21-year-old Titmus will be absent from the most important annual global swim meet.

Later, in the same interview, Titmus said. “I just really wanted to think about the long term, and I really don’t care – it doesn’t bother me that I’m not going to be in the headlines or the media or the spotlight when the world championships are on. That’s not why I swim. I swim because I love it and I want to perform on the biggest stage, which for me is the Olympic Games.”

Her decision to pass over the world championships is a brave one. Titmus first began to shine with her success in the last world championship, which was in 2019. She upset Ledecky, who was a 15-time world champion and won the gold in the 400-meter freestyle. Two years later, Titmus stabilized her reputation in the Tokyo Olympics, beating Ledecky to the gold in the 200- and 400-meter freestyle.

If she chose to go the worlds, she could have a chance to cement her title, countering Ledecky, who was clearly sitting upon the throne for the sport for ten years.

But Ariarne Titmus is different.