Four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus has announced her shock retirement from swimming, saying the seed was sewn by her cancer scare before the Paris Games. The 25-year-old, who grew up in Tasmania, will retire as one of the greatest distance swimmers of all time.
“It’s a tough one but one that I’m really happy with,” she said in an Instagram video post. “I’ve always loved swimming … but I guess I’ve taken this time away from the sport and realised some things in my life that have always been important to me are just a little bit more important to me now than swimming.”
Before the Paris Olympics, Titmus underwent surgery to remove two benign tumours after a large growth was found on her right ovary. “A turning point for me or a time when a switch was flicked was in the lead-up to the Paris Games, I went through some health challenges, which quite frankly really rocked me mentally. It probably was the first time where I considered some things outside of swimming.”
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Titmus achieved an historic third individual Olympic gold medal, winning the 400m freestyle in the race dubbed ‘the race of the century’, where she defeated American all-time great Katie Ledecky and Canadian swimming prodigy Summer McIntosh. In doing so, Titmus became the first Australian athlete since Dawn Fraser in 1964 to win back-to-back gold medals in the same event.
Titmus credited Ledecky with pushing her to become a champion athlete, naming her 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when she edged the 400m world record-holder, as her greatest achievement. “There’s nothing like the first, Tokyo going in as what was deemed the underdog, but I knew in myself I could win and to come from behind and win in Tokyo against the GOAT, that feeling will sit with me forever,” she said.
Titmus steps away from the sport as the current 200m world record-holder, having won a staggering haul of 33 international medals including eight Olympic medals (four gold, three silver and one bronze) and four world titles. She said she is hoping to work more in broadcasting and doing public speaking as well as giving back to swimming, particularly working with young athletes from regional areas.
