The 2019 world championships. The Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The 2022 Commonwealth Games. Last year’s world championships. Since 2018, Australian middle-distance swim star Ariarne Titmus has not lost a 400m freestyle final at an international race.
She certainly was not going to start on Saturday night, during the opening evening of swimming finals at the Paris Olympics. To the above list Titmus can now add Paris 2024 after seeing off Canadian prodigy Summer McIntosh and American swim great Katie Ledecky to win Australia’s first gold medal in the pool of this Games.