PAIN NO PROBLEM AS TITMUS TARGETS GOLD
SWIMMING: Ariarne Titmus needed to make pain a friend to become the new force in swimming’s most taxing events with a mantra she gratefully borrowed from one of Australia’s distance divas.
The newest star of the Aussie swim team credits a chat with 1988 Olympian Janelle Elford, a multiple Australian title winner, for flicking a switch in her mindset for the brutal demands of the 400m-800m double.
Titmus swims the 800m to win but she loves the racing of the 400m which tonight can produce one of the rousing highlights at the Commonwealth Games pool on the Gold Coast.
Should she become a champion for the new age by beating Welsh Olympic silver medallist Jazz Carlin, a special bonus will await.
The gold medal will be a baton change of eras because it will be presented by Gold Coast-based Tracey Wickham, the pool queen who won the 400m-800m double at both the 1978 and 1982 Commonwealth Games.
Titmus was an unknown of 14 from Launceston at the national age championships in Sydney in 2015 when she spoke with Elford.
“She said ‘you have to learn to love pain and when you feel that pain you push harder’,” Titmus, just 17, said of a key career moment. “I went out and swam my best race in ages and I put it down to what Janelle told me. “I’m not scared of pain.” It’s that hardcore attitude that is so exciting. It is only six years since Susie O’Neill wondered if Australia was still breeding female swimmers willing to do the truly tough mileage in the pool to follow in the Hall of Fame footsteps of former distance queens like Wickham and Elford.
“It won’t be easy. Jazz will bring her best and I’ll bring mine so it’ll be a great battle,” Titmus said.