Ariarne Titmus discusses life after swimming | Wide World of Sports

Hopefully one day go to the Olympics represent Australia, but at the moment just keep improving and stay at the top of my game. Titmuss, the 18-year-old Australian is storming home and this is going to be an almighty up. Titmuss will take the gold medal. The world champion is about to become the Olympic champion and Ariane Titmuss is going to win gold in Tokyo. She's our golden girl. Titmuss is just in front. This could be double gold for the Australian. Titmuss strikes gold and it's an Olympic record for the Australian. If I wasn't training as hard as I could, I wouldn't be where I am today. People should realise that they see that I train hard and I get results. She's ahead of the world. This is one of the greatest performances that it has ever seen. Ariane Titmuss has pulled away and completely dominated for gold in world record time. Arnie is back on top of the world. Those are simply glorious. Arnie's on the way. One of our greatest sporting champions and she swims into history. She's the princess of Paris tonight and the toast of the world. Thanks everyone and I'm excited to let my hair down. Some good memories there. Ten days since Ariane Titmuss retired from all forms of swimming. Arnie, smile on your face all the way through that. Just listening to that last comment from you in that interview post the 800 in Paris. It was almost a hint that maybe you thought it was the last time. Did you have any sense that that was your last time in the pool? No, I didn't. I knew I was going to my big 12 month break that I planned to have but I was exhausted at the end of that meet. So I was excited just to let my hair down a little bit but something really strange actually happened. Whenever I would go to a medal ceremony, I would just take my medal off straight away and walk back to the warm down pool. But after the 800, I actually stood at the top of the pool and took a video of the entire atmosphere to kind of soak it all in. And I just felt like I had to do that and it just is really cool that that was actually my last race and I did that. Because you weren't well during Paris. Tell us about your lead up to not just the 800, the 400, the whole week. You weren't well. Yeah, I got RSV about three weeks before Paris training camp and then I had that all the way through then caught COVID in the middle of the week in Paris. So I was racing the back end of the week really sick but I'm proud of the way that I was able to pull it all out under that sort of pressure and just finish my career on a high. And you must be emotional watching the vision of your incredible career, Arnie. We're emotional watching it with you. We've been with you through your whole journey. So just around 10 days now since you made the announcement, how are you feeling emotionally and what about the reaction from Australia? I feel nice that everyone knows but I honestly cannot believe the outpour. I didn't think that it would blow up kind of how it did and just the amount of people that have been so supportive of my decision. I'm only 25 and I thought a lot of people would probably push back on and say, why is she retiring? But it's actually been the opposite. People have been saying to me, I think you're making the right decision and making yourself as happy as you can be. And I just feel really happy that people are accepting the decision. You see a lot of athletes retire and particularly swimmers I think are so focused all the time, so disciplined. And sometimes they struggle after they retire. Do you have any fears at all about what the next few years hold for you? I actually don't. I am a little bit nervous about the lack of routine. I've been so routine my whole life. But I'm just so excited. I've got so many great things in my life at the moment and I think that's part of the reason why I'm so content. So I'm actually not nervous. It's going to be great. No more early mornings. So it wasn't after the 800 at Paris, you said you just wanted to have a year off. When did you know, when did you know, I'm done, I've had enough of swimming? I was unsure what I was going to do for a while. I guess I started talking to Dean about the roadmap back and when we were having those conversations, I wasn't really wanting to have them. And then it was when I was actually commentating the World Championships with Nine that I was watching the racing and thinking, I don't really mind that I'm not there. I feel quite happy to be on the sidelines. And I think after that, it was when I thought, you know what, if you feel like you're happy on the sidelines, that's not enough for you to go back. And that's kind of when I started to think maybe this is the right thing for me to do. All right. When we knew you were coming in today, we gave you the impossible task of narrowing down all your races to your three favorites. What are they? So the first one is my Tokyo 400, winning my first Olympic gold medal. And it's the most unbelievable feeling, achieving a lifelong dream in an instant. And I just, that's the best feeling I've had in my career, you know, relief, but also how fun to do it. Then my second one would be the 2023 World Championships. I was going into that race and Simon McIntosh actually broke my world record before that meet and they said, oh, Titmuss is going to get bronze. And I totally used that as fuel and came out there and blasted them away and got my world record back. So I think that's been the best swim of my career. So I loved that moment. And then the third one would be, which was a tough one, the 400 in Paris going in to defend my title. I just, that was probably my toughest task to try and go back to back. I was unwell, the weight of the nation really on my shoulders. And I felt so proud to be able to do that and finish in my favorite event back to back. All right. So some great highlights there. And as I said, just thinking about everything that you've done in the pool, so difficult to narrow it down. On behalf of everyone, I think, watching, but also everyone at Nine, congratulations on a brilliant career. Thank you.