Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
SELECT 👉 Hagley Oval commentary"Extremely lonely": Steve Titmus reveals the dedication that made Ariarne a champion
Sam Kosack • October 17th, 2025 8:25 pm
Ariarne Titmus’s father Steve has detailed the intense schedule and life his daughter lived on her trip to becoming an Olympic hero after Ariarne revealed she no longer had “the fire in the belly” to pursue professional swimming.
At 25-years-old, the four-time gold medallist announced her retirement from international swimming following 18-years of competing.
Titmus took an extended break from swimming after the 2024 Paris Olympics, revealing today she always intended to return but simply didn’t have “the fire in the belly” to come back.
"At the end of the day, it is a decision about my life and I have to do what makes me happy. People can have their own thoughts on those things but I know I am content with this," she said at a press conference today.
"I made a lot of decisions to put my social life and personal life on the back burner and put my sport first and I do not regret any of that because I do not think I would have performed as well as I had if I had made different decisions.
"So, I am at peace with so much. I walk away knowing that I could not have done any more."
She also revealed she was hoping to move into broadcasting for swimming and other sports ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Speaking to SENQ Breakfast, Steve Titmus echoed his daughter’s sentiments, providing further explanation of the path Ariarne had chosen to walk for close to the last two decades.
“It's a tough gig,” Titmus told SENQ Breakfast.
“It's very lonely, it's up at 4:30 in the morning. It's off to the pool in the dark. You're swimming six to eight kilometres in the morning, up and down that black line.
“You've got a coach like Dean Boxall, being tough on you on the side of the pool and then you're out of the pool, you're home, you eat, you have breakfast, everyone else has gone to work.
“Then you go to sleep for a couple of hours, then you're at the gym, then you're back to the pool for a few more kilometres. You come home at 7:30, 8 o'clock at night, you quickly have a meal, then it's off to bed.
“It's not a normal existence. And that's been our life as a family for the past decade since Ariana made the Australian swimming team.
“It can be extremely lonely. You've got to be unbelievably focused and it's not like a lot of sports where you can… go and have a beer with the mates.
“Every single day has got to be accounted for… it's very lonely, it's very different.
“I'd say, Arnie and, as a family, we haven't made sacrifices. She's made choices. She wanted to be the best in the world at a chosen sport, and she dreamt of that, and if she wanted that, she had to go through the 1 percenters, and not just the 1 per cent once a week, but she had to do that every single day.
“As Dean Boxall said to me yesterday, Arnie had to look at herself in the mirror every day and say, ‘What am I going to do today that's going to make me the best in the world?’
“And she had to make those comments to herself, thinking of no one else but an incredible self-focus on achieving that ultimate goal.
“At the end of it, you can stand on that podium with a gold medal around your neck and they play the beautiful Australian anthem, and you think to yourself, wow, what a moment in life that is, and those choices that were made have certainly paid off in spades of gold.”
