Ariarne Titmus was a swimmer who “ate pressure for breakfast”, adding two Olympic golds in Paris to the pair he won in Tokyo in 2021, before retiring last October at the age of 25.
Good news, perhaps, for Siobhan Haughey, the “very tough but beautiful” competitor who claimed Olympic 200m silver behind Titmus in 2021.
After the same final in the French capital three years later, the normally composed, articulate and eloquent Titmus could not hold back a flood of tears as he spoke to a packed media corridor in Paris La Defence.
She had finished second to fellow Australian Mollie O’Callaghan, while Haughey, who Titmus believes could find her golden moment in Los Angeles in 2028, came home third.
“I was really surprised about the media seeing me upset because I didn’t want anyone to think it was a losing response,” Titmus told the South China Morning Post.
In reality, Titmus was “overcome by emotional power”, resulting from the relief that his two priority events, the 400m freestyle, which he won, and the 200m freestyle, in which he still holds the world record, had been completed.
“I felt a lot of pressure from home to win, which I usually enjoy,” Titmus said. “When I was 16, (four-time Olympic gold medalist) Cate Campbell said to me, ‘You eat breakfast pressure, you love it’.
