Ariarne Titmus: 'I know that the LA Olympics will be my last'
Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus, who is taking this season off from competing, does plan to return for a 2028 Olympic bid while repeating that she's at 'the tail end' of her career.
'I know that the LA Olympics will be my last,' Titmus, 24, said on a Two Am I podcast episode published Friday. 'So I just don't want to be an athlete that retires from their sport and is lost and has nothing to do, and I think that it was so important for me to channel different areas of my life to know that when I do leave the sport behind, I'm going to be all right.'
Titmus won Olympic 200m and 400m freestyle titles at Tokyo 2020, then earned gold in the 400m free and the 4x200m free relay at the Paris Games.
She has been American Katie Ledecky's primary rival for several years.
Australia hosts the 2032 Brisbane Games, when Titmus will be 31. No Australian female swimmer over the age of 30 has ever competed at the Olympics, according to the OlyMADMen.
After the 2023 World Championships, Titmus told her coach, Dean Boxall, that she would be 'running on fumes' by the end of 2024.
'I just know for myself, mentally more than anything, I just need to give myself a break, and a long break,' she said on the podcast, adding that she had swum 3,000 meters total since last summer. 'I need to give myself almost like an unlimited timeline to allow the hunger and motivation to build back up. I mean, I've been training the volume that I have been since I was 13, and up until I was 21, I'd had no more than two weeks at a time off.
'So, after Tokyo, I had two months (off). I enjoyed myself, but it didn't quite feel long enough. So I thought, if I want to make it through the next cycle, I'm going to have to give myself some time to just enjoy life a little bit.'
Last November, fellow Australian swim star Kaylee McKeown was quoted saying that she plans to make LA 2028 her final Olympics, too. McKeown would be bypassing a chance to bid for the 2032 Games that will be held 19 miles north of her birthplace.
'I already know within myself I want to go because it will be my last Olympics, and I want to enjoy the sport, I love the sport, and I don't want to do it for anyone else or any other purpose but myself,' McKeown said then, according to News Corp Australia.
McKeown, 23, swept the 100m and 200m backstrokes in Tokyo and Paris and has continued to compete since then.
McKeown's total Olympic gold medals (five, including in the Tokyo women's 4x100m medley relay) and total Olympic medals (nine) have been bettered by only one athlete in Australian history across all sports: swimming teammate Emma McKeon, who announced her retirement last November.
In 2028, both Titmus and McKeown can win individual gold at a third Olympics, a feat accomplished by one previous Australian in any sport: swimmer Dawn Fraser, won took the 100m free in 1956, 1960 and 1964.
Nick Zaccardi,
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