Titmus Talks Short Course Racing In Preparation For Melbourne

2018 AUSTRALIAN SHORT COURSE CHAMPIONSHIPS

18-year-old Ariarne Titmus is one to watch this week in Melbourne, as the World Championship medalist will be taking to the pool at the Australian Short Course Championships. The teen freestyle ace is set to contest the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events, entering the meet as the top seed in each.

In her pre-competition interview, Titmus describes her whirlwind year, one which the Tasmanian teen says she hasn’t yet quite wrapped her head around. After taking bronze in Budapest as a member of Australia’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay last year, Titmus broke out in a big way in 2018, claiming triple gold at the Aussie-hosted Commonwealth Games while also taking 200m free silver.

Titmus followed that break-out meet with another impressive display of talent at the Pan Pacific Championships. The teen took silver behind Ledecky in both the 400m and 800m free, but in the former Titmus touched just over a second behind to clock a new Oceanic Record and become the first Australian female to ever crack the 4:00 barrier in the event.

Describing short course racing as ‘fun’, Titmus is looking forward to racing this week as a means to keep honing her ‘skills’ in the pool, rather than just her ‘swimming’. She identifies things she needs to work on as she heads into this final stretch of training and competing before taking a post-Short Course Worlds break.

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Yozhik
6 years ago

If she swims for fun it is one thing if her races are motivated by recent success of Wang Jianjiahe at World Cup it will be completely different thing. It can be the competition of the same type as we saw this Spring between Efimova and King: one shows leading results at Mare Nostrum and another one responds almost immediately with better times at PSS meets.
If Titmus go for World records in 400 and 800 events it will seriously change the situation with competition for bonus points and money awards at the last cluster of World Cup that starts in 10 days.
There could be no world record points for Wang Jianjiahe And her FINA points will… Read more »

Bear drinks beer
Reply to  Yozhik
6 years ago

The base of Fina points is the world record by the end of the previous season.

Yozhik
Reply to  Bear drinks beer
6 years ago

Thanks. Nice to know.
So if Wang swims 400 faster then Belmonte’s best time but slowly than her own record she will get the score higher than 1000 anyway?
Also, is Wang’s record in 400 approved already? If not can she get world record bonus and $10,000 just by beating Belmonte’s last record?

About Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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