TITMUS STAYS IN FAST LANE

ONE of Australia’s great gold medal hopes, Ariarne Titmus, will not stop her Olympic preparations no matter what the speculation over this year’s Tokyo Games.

The Times has reported Tokyo officials have privately conceded the Olympics will not go ahead this year due to COVID complications.

This comes after the Games was postponed for 12 months last year due to the pandemic.

Titmus, who famously ended US star Katie Ledecky’s unbeaten run in international 400m freestyles at the 2019 world championships in South Korea, said she was in full training and would continue to focus on the Games due to start in six months today.

“There is no point thinking it might not be on and then not putting 100 per cent into training and then getting to the Olympics knowing that you haven’t actually trained as best as you could,” the Brisbanebased Tasmanian said.

“The only way to prepare is to believe that the Olympics is going to happen.

“I believe everyone will make it happen.”

Titmus, 20, has already lived through having her first Olympic Games postponed but hasn’t contemplated them being cancelled yet. “What will be will be,” she said.

“It is a very different world at the moment and if it is just not possible to have the Olympics then all of us will just have to accept that as very disappointing. As my first Olympic Games I’ve been looking forward to this for such a long time.

“But I’m not retiring anytime soon so I know there will be more opportunities for me.

“But I honestly haven’t thought about that one bit. I’m just preparing like the Olympics is going to happen.”