Wherever Ledecky goes, Arnie is stalking

“OH, she’s right there.”

Ariarne Titmus is a racer through and through. Combative enough to get into Katie Ledecky’s lane for a good and proper rumble.

Rule something or other of the Olympic Charter won’t allow it, and so she will settle for chasing the great American with the zeal of a cattledog going after the biggest steer in the paddock. Wherever Ledecky goes, Titmus will be … right there.

It was the most-hyped race of the Games. Ledecky isn’t used to having anyone within cooee of her, and part of her can’t believe Titmus even exists. Where’d you come from?

When Ledecky looks to her right just before stepping on to the blocks, she sees Titmus. Right there.

From the start, Ledecky locks into that rolling gallop of a stroke of hers.

“She pushes herself to the point of disintegration,” has been the response of Ledecky’s coach Greg Meehan when asked about her greatest strength. That’s where Titmus has to go. The point of disintegration.

She’s behind for seven of the eight laps, but the cattledog keeps chasing.

At about 330m, they’re neck and neck in an enthralling battle.

A crowd would be going ballistic. All you can really hear is the elevator music. When Titmus turns and breathes to her left on the penultimate lap, she sees Ledecky. When Ledecky turns and breathes to her right, she sees what she doesn’t want to see. Titmus. Later, Ledecky will tell us what she thought right then.

“Oh, she’s right there.”

Titmus has her covered. Throughout the final lap, the feeling inside the Tokyo Aquatics Centre is palpable.

Crikey. She’s got her. She touches the wall and turns to her right. Ledecky isn’t there yet.

The Olympic champion’s time of 3min 56.69sec is the second-fastest in history, and beats the disintegrated Ledecky by 0.67 of a second, which is the proverbial mile in swimming.

It’s a triumph on the top shelf of Australian sporting achievements.

It’s as meritorious as Ash Barty’s Wimbledon triumph because, for context, beating Ledecky in freestyle was meant to be as impossible as trumping Usain Bolt in a foot race.

She’s won something that wasn’t supposed to be winnable.

Unless my lip-reading was off, she said upon looking at the scoreboard: “Holy s--t.”