It’s been a truly golden morning for Australian athletes with Ariarne Titmus snatching a second gold medal in the 200m freestyle, once again beating out her fierce rival, US swimming god Katie Ledecky, in the pool.
God, you bloody love to see it, don’t you?
Ariarne nabbed her second gold in Wednesday morning’s big final (and locked in an Olympic record to boot) leaving fifth-placed Ledecky in her wake with Hong Kong and Canada taking out silver and bronze respectively.
Dean Boxall, swimming coach and true icon of the Aussie contingency in Tokyo, was once again absolutely ecstatic to see Ariarne smash it in the pool again. Sure, he might not have exploded with excitement like he did for her 400m freestyle win on Monday, but he still managed to run down the aisle and do some massive fist pumps as Ariarne finished the race in first.
Whenever our golden gal Ariarne Titmus swims I would like channel 7 to have a “dean boxall reaction cam” in the corner of the screen at all times #OlympicGames #Olympics
— ath-in-a (@athinamallis) July 28, 2021
In her post-race interview, Ariane said she was so happy she was able to “bring some excitement to loungerooms” across Australia, especially as Sydney faces another month extension of lockdown. She also gave some encouragement for anyone watching at home, recognising that she’s proof that excellence can come from any community.
“I feel so fortunate to be here, to be able to do what I love,” she said.
“I’m just from a small town in Tasmania and just goes to show if you believe you believe you can do something you can 100% do it if you work for it.”
This second gold for Ariarne Titmus also puts her into elite company now, with Ian Thorpe being the last Australian athlete to win gold in both 400m and 200m freestyle events at Athens in 2004, and the only other athlete to have done the double before that was Shane Gould in Munich in 1972.
How about that for a swim! How about it! Gould, Thorpe, Titmus. The 200/400 Golden double club. Rarefied air. #Tokyo2020 #TokyoTogether #Swimming
— Great Sage (@Mr2046) July 28, 2021
This big win also means that at the time of writing Australia has landed three gold medals in a single day, with both the men’s and women’s rowing teams bringing home the hardware in the finals on Wednesday morning. That brings our current gold medal tally to six, with two more medals possible to be won in the pool today.
You bloody beauty.
