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Ariarne Titmus is swimming without fear and toward greatness

Ariarne Titmus celebrates after winning the 400m freestyle in record time at the Tokyo Olympics. (Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images)

Ariarne Titmus didn’t do much swimming from August through September.

The first two weeks after the Olympics meant quarantine. It was then that Titmus had a chance to reflect on everything she had accomplished.

In Tokyo, the Australian swimmer won gold in the 400-meter freestyle, handing Katie Ledecky her first-ever individual Olympic loss. Titmus’ time of 3:56.69 set an Australian record and made her the second-fastest swimmer in the event, falling just short of Ledecky’s world record from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

She went on to win another individual gold in the 200-meter freestyle, this time setting an Olympic record. Also medaling in the 800-meter freestyle and the 4×200-meter freestyle relay in Tokyo, Titmus returned to Australia with a haul from her first Olympics — two gold medals, one silver and one bronze.

So, it wasn’t easy for the 21-year-old to go from peaking in her sport to, essentially, doing nothing.

“It was a really strange feeling going from the biggest high of your life down to pretty much the most boring two weeks of my life,” Titmus tells Just Women’s Sports. “I don’t think there’s a point in your life where you’re forced to rest and do nothing.”

There was press to be done, and sleep to catch up on. The gravity of what she had accomplished, as a swimmer from the small Australian state of Tasmania, didn’t really set in until Titmus was able to step foot outside of the bubble that she had lived in for the two months leading up to and during Tokyo.

“When I saw my family and the impact that my performance had on them and the emotion that came off, I think that’s when I started to realize what I had achieved,” she says.

“Even coming home now to Australia and walking around and seeing people, I just feel like our country’s had a really rough trot with COVID the past few months. Half the country is in lockdown at the moment. I just think the Olympics probably really lifted the spirits of people.”

***

Steve Titmus knew after Ariarne won her first national junior championship at 15 years old that his daughter could do something special in swimming.

“When Ariarne touched the wall first and we jumped in the air with joy and excitement, the people in front of us turned around and they looked at us and they went, ‘What?’” Steve recalls now. “It was like, ‘No, you’re from Tasmania. You can’t win. That’s an absolute impossibility.’”

After the race, Swimming Australia approached the Titmus family with the notion that Ariarne could one day swim for her country. With 75 percent of Australia’s national team swimmers and coaches working out of Southeast Queensland, the family started having conversations about moving to the area for better training opportunities.

Ariarne talked about it with her parents, Steve and Robyn, and her sister Mia. After about a month of deliberation, they decided she would go.

“We’ve lived by the motto in our family that we never made sacrifices — we made choices,” Steve says. “We made the choice to move to Queensland for her to chase her dreams, but that also gave her younger sister Mia schooling opportunities and career opportunities.”

When training under Peter Gartrell took Ariarne as far as she could go, the Titmus family had another decision to make. Gartrell knew Dean Boxall, who coached one of the best age-group squads in the country at St. Peters Western, and approached him about the possibility of taking her on.

Ariarne knew that making the switch would benefit her swimming. And it helped that their personalities clicked, with Boxall describing her as “a bit of a chatterbox” before their first meeting.

“I went and met with Dean and his values aligned with me. He expects hard work and I love hard work,” Ariarne says. “I also enjoyed him as a person. I felt like we would click really well. I started and everything just fell into place.”

“He was quite flamboyant as a coach,” Steve says. “It was a style that we thought Arnie just might gel with.”

Within the first couple of months of Titmus and Boxall working together, Titmus cracked 4:10 in the 400-meter freestyle for the first time. By the end of 2016, she made her first senior national team.

After Titmus’ first World Championships in 2017, people started paying more attention to the young up-and-comer who might one day unseat Ledecky. Those rumblings grew louder when Titmus beat Ledecky at the 2019 World Championships.

“I think it just was the switch that I needed,” Titmus says. “I don’t think we ever thought that it would pan out like this, though.”

When COVID-19 shut everything down in March 2020, Boxall made sure that Titmus had somewhere to train. Then he would jump into the pool with her so that she had someone to race against.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s more passionate about coaching in this sport than Dean Boxall,” Steve says. “He puts in way beyond what anybody should be expected to put in.”

Eventually, pools in Australia started to open up again, allowing one person per lane and a training window of one hour.

“You couldn’t really do much,” Titmus says. “It was just trying to roll the arms over and get as much swimming in as we could.”

On March 23, the Australian Federation announced it would not send a team to the Olympics due to COVID-19. One week later, the International Olympic Committee postponed the Games until 2021.

“Initially, when the Olympics were postponed, I was like, ‘This is so crap. I’m ready to go now,’” Titmus says. “But then I realized the bigger picture. I don’t think it would have been fair to have the Olympics at that point in time.”

Instead, Titmus embraced the extra year of training, ramping up the intensity in the pool and maintaining minimal contact with the outside world, including friends and family.

The work she and her team put in then to be ready for July makes Titmus’ Olympic gold in the 400 all the more special. It also means that Boxall’s now-infamous reaction to the win didn’t surprise her.

“It was not unexpected,” Titmus says. “That’s typical Dean. That’s just his personality.

“Every time I watch it back, I just laugh more and more because when he grabs that railing, it’s just so funny. … It goes to show how much he had my back.”

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Titmus and her coach, Dean Boxall, soak in her 200m freestyle win at the Olympics. (Abbie Parr/Getty Images)

***

For as competitive as Titmus and Ledecky are in the pool, the swimmers have a lot of respect for each other and what each has accomplished. Titmus said as much after her win in the 400m freestyle, a sentiment Ledecky was quick to echo.

“She said she couldn’t have done it without me, and I could say the same about her,” Ledecky told NBC after the race in Tokyo. “She’s really pushed me. I think it’s great for the sport.”

“I have a lot of respect for Katie because I know what I’ve had to do to get to this point and swim this fast,” Ariarne says now. “I definitely wouldn’t be in this position without her because she’s just pushed the barrier. … If the goalpost was set back and she was swimming four minutes, I don’t think I’d be under four minutes yet.”

Titmus actually felt a sense of calm in Tokyo. She trusted in her preparation and believed she could achieve what she had set out to do five years prior. Still, beating Ledecky required kicking it into another gear.

“It was a rarity that you would beat Katie Ledecky going 3:58,” she says. “I think the work that I did in the lead-up to these Games in the last few months in the pool just gave me this confidence.

“I was doing things in training I didn’t think I could do at this point in my career. Just having confidence in the work I did really got me over the edge.”

Titmus also felt better physically when she landed in Tokyo. Until the middle of March, an injury to her subscapularis tendon had hindered her training.

“I had to swim for a long time with my shoulder not feeling right,” she says, adding that from December to March she was unable to do a main set, causing her to lose her swimming fitness. “At the Olympics, in the training camp prior, I was still modifying things in Cairns around my shoulder that I couldn’t do.

In the days leading up to her first Olympic race, Titmus says the injury “settled down” and, for the first time in months, her shoulder wasn’t an issue.

The relief helped Titmus unlock the next level in her swimming, the one she knew she’d need to beat Ledecky on the big stage.

“I hope that the way that I swim my races also inspires people to try and change their tactics up and swim with no fear,” she says. “Because that’s just the way I’ve been. I was never afraid to take it to Katie.”

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Titmus and Ledecky have fostered one of the best rivalries in the sport. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

***

Titmus hasn’t thought much beyond the next couple of months. While she would love to compete in three total Olympics, first there are the 2022 World Championships in May and the Commonwealth Games in August. In all, it’s set to be a busy year.

But first, Titmus plans to take a long break.

“I haven’t had more than two weeks off in a row in my entire life,” she says. “I need time for my body and my mind to recover. I want to go back to training knowing that I’m ready to go and not get to next year and be already like, ‘Oh, I want another break.'”

Titmus will pick her training back up in October, she says, after about eight weeks out of the pool.

“Then it’ll be back to what’s been our life for the past decade,” Steve says. “We’ll be providing the support and stability at home for her to, once again, continue to chase further Olympic dreams.”

In the meantime, she’ll stay active without the added pressure of training. On Sept. 7, Titmus celebrated her 21st birthday over a long lunch with her closest family members and friends. As a certified foodie, Titmus decided on Opa Bar + Mezze in Brisbane.

She’ll also make time to bake and cook the foods she didn’t allow herself to eat prior to the Olympics. There will be heaps of pavlovas, her mother’s favorite dessert, as well as slow-cooked meats thanks to her trusted pressure cooker.

Unlike the pool, the kitchen is a place where Titmus doesn’t have to be racing against the clock.

“It’s just a really relaxing thing for me,” she says. “It keeps my mind off swimming, and I just enjoy the whole creative aspect and making up recipes and really enjoying the calmness.”

With the Paris Olympics just three years away after COVID-19 disrupted the cycle, Titmus doesn’t have as much time to hit the reset button. Luckily, at home, she doesn’t have to worry about being anybody but herself.

“We don’t have any expectation on whether Arnie will defend her gold medals,” Steve says. “Arnie is still, now, our 21-year-old daughter, and she is this goofy girl who happens to be able to swim faster than most other people in the world.

“From our point of view, Mia’s nursing studies are just as important and a thrill for us as Ariarne chasing an Olympic gold medal.”

Still, Steve is looking forward to seeing what Ariarne can accomplish in the next three years and beyond.

So is she, all while trying not to lose sight of what drew her to the pool in the first place.

“Once you get the taste of winning, it’s very addictive, and winning at the highest level is very addictive,” Ariarne says. “I still feel like, even though I’m now an Olympic champion, I have so much more to give in the sport and so much more to learn.”

First-time LPGA Tour Champion Yealimi Noh Wins Founders Cup

US golfer Yealimi Noh poses with her 2025 Founders Cup trophy.
Yealimi Noh earned her first LPGA win at the Founders Cup on Sunday. (James Gilbert/Getty Image)

After four days of stiff competition, the 2025 Founders Cup yielded a first-time LPGA Tour winner on Sunday as US golfer Yealimi Noh surged to victory on strong back-nine play in Bradenton, Florida.

The world No. 32-ranked Noh kicked off her sixth season with the LPGA by lifting her first trophy in her 111th start.

In just two holes on Sunday, the 23-year-old flipped a one-shot deficit into a three-shot lead, eventually claiming the $300,000 championship check with an overall 21-under-par performance.

"I always knew it would happen and it was a matter of time," Noh told reporters after her win. "To really get it done, and especially in the first tournament of the year, is really nice."

Noh, who earned a captain's nod in the 2021 Solheim Cup, is officially on an upswing. After less successful 2022 and 2023 seasons, she made 21 cuts across her 25 LPGA starts in 2024, helping fuel last weekend's blockbuster 2025 debut.

"Having a lot of better results and getting my confidence back and contending a few times last season really helped me carry that out through the winter and just really prepare for this week," she explained. "[I] just felt really ready — this was going to be my year and week."

South Korea's Jin Young Ko plays a shot during the 2025 Founders Cup's final round.
Jin Young Ko made bogeys on Sunday's 13th and the 14th hole to finish the Founders Cup in second place. (James Gilbert/Getty Images)

Founders Cup sees additional standout performances

Just behind Noh on last weekend's leaderboard is No. 7 Jin Young Ko. The South Korean star's narrow lead fell when she made her first bogeys of the competition, logging two back-to-back on Sunday.

The 15-time LPGA title-winner capped her tournament four strokes back from Noh, with US golfer and world No. 17 Megan Khang one stroke behind Ko in third place.

World No. 1 Nelly Korda finished tied for seventh place after capping her Founders Cup outing nine shots behind Noh.

The US star will next take a seven-week break, opting to sit out the upcoming trio of LPGA Tour stops in Asia. Korda will instead continue to search for her first victory of 2025 at the end of March, when she tees off at the Ford Championship in Chandler, Arizona.

Unrivaled Cancels Game, Shortens 1v1 Tournament Due to Player Injuries

Rose BC's Angel Reese and Mist BC's Aaliyah Edwards stand on the Unrivaled court during a 3x3 game.
Injuries forced Unrivaled to shorten this week's 1v1 tournament. (Rich Storry/Getty Images)

Unrivaled 3×3 Basketball hit an injury wall this weekend, forcing the inaugural offseason league to cancel one regular-season game and truncate this week's 1v1 tournament.

With multiple Laces players sidelined, the league called off the team's Saturday night matchup against Vinyl BC.

Similarly, after seven participants had to pull out of Unrivaled's hotly anticipated 30-player 1v1 tournament, the league responded by shortening the contest's first round.

With all teams camped together on Unrivaled's Miami campus, specific details concerning player availability as well as injury type and severity have been tough to come by.

Laces stars Alyssa Thomas (knee) and Tiffany Hayes (concussion) both exited the 1v1 tournament after suffering injuries in previous Unrivaled matchups, putting their fitness statuses in question as the 2025 WNBA season looms.

Fellow Laces standouts Kayla McBride and Kate Martin, plus Rose BC's Brittney Sykes and Phantom stars Natasha Cloud and Marina Mabrey, will not participate. The withdrawal is "due to lingering injuries and to prioritize player wellbeing for regular-season games," per Unrivaled.

Injuries shrink Unrivaled 1v1 tournament's first round

Instead of a planned 14 games split across an afternoon session and an evening set on Monday, the now eight-game opening round of the league's 1v1 contest will occur in a single night of competition.

In an effort to maintain the original bracket as much as possible, Unrivaled decided against making any changes to its first-round matchups.

Because of this, five additional athletes will join the previously announced Jewell Loyd and Arike Ogunbowale in snagging first-round byes, with Courtney Williams, DiJonai Carrington, Satou Sabally, Rae Burrell, and Azurá Stevens now also set to tip off their 1v1 journeys during Tuesday's second round.

Unrivaled's reliance on short, elite rosters has spelled heated competition on a star-stacked court, but the strategy is now revealing its shortcomings. Such slim margins leave the league scrambling whenever one of their players — all of whom plan to return to the WNBA in mid-May — needs a break to prioritize rest and recovery.

Mist BC's DiJonai Carrington dribbles the ball during an Unrivaled 3x3 game.
DiJonai Carrington is one of five players who now have 1v1 tournament byes because of league injuries. (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

How to watch Unrivaled's 1v1 tournament

The three-day competition tips off its eight-game first round at 7 PM ET on Monday. Both the second round and quarterfinals are set to begin at 7 PM ET on Tuesday, with the semifinals and finals slated for Friday at 7:30 PM ET.

All games will air live on truTV, with TNT also broadcasting Monday's and Friday's sessions.

Texas Snaps South Carolina’s SEC Streak in NCAA Weekend Action

South Carolina's Joyce Edwards tried to defend a shot from Texas guard Madison Booker on Sunday.
Texas handed South Carolina their first SEC loss since 2021. (Adam Davis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

No. 4 Texas basketball claimed their revenge over No. 2 South Carolina on Sunday, taking down the reigning NCAA champs 66-62 to even the pair's regular-season series at 1-1.

In the process, the Longhorns snapped South Carolina's 57-game regular-season SEC winning streak — a victory chain dating back to December 2021.

Texas star sophomore Madison Booker led all scorers with 20 points and 11 rebounds, prompting South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley to levy high praise by calling her "a beast on the boards" after the game.

Texas basketball players celebrate their victory over South Carolina on Sunday.
Texas could claim the SEC's top spot outright by defeating LSU on Sunday. (Scott Wachter/Imagn Images)

Strength of SEC sets up fight for NCAA tournament positioning

This weekend's results ultimately bottlenecked Texas, South Carolina, and LSU into a three-way regular-season tie for first-place in the SEC — one of the NCAA's toughest leagues.

The No. 6 Tigers earned their own marquee win on Sunday, downing No. 19 Tennessee 82-77.

With that result, all three teams now have 10-1 conference records, though LSU and Texas could break from the line during their possible winner-take-all date this Sunday.

All in all, the Southeast's depth is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, the conference's elite teams are gearing up to take March Madness by storm: Each of the SEC's top trio is likely to finish the season as an AP Top-10 team, ultimately earning a strong seeding throughout the postseason.

Other strong squads, however, must grapple with under-seeding due to disappointing conference records suffered in the gauntlet of the SEC.

For example, despite last week's big win over No. 5 UConn, Tennessee's string of slim conference losses have them sitting 4-6 in SEC play. This means that the Vols will likely face an uphill battle to claim beneficial seeding in March's NCAA tournament, giving them a disproportionately difficult road to the Final Four.

Lauren Betts isn't done with the NCAA

Already looking beyond the 2024/25 NCAA postseason, star center Lauren Betts will return to UCLA next season and forego the 2025 WNBA Draft, the National Player of the Year candidate confirmed on Friday.

Ranked No. 1 out of high school, the 6-foot-7 junior transferred to the Bruins from Stanford after her freshman year, making the 21-year-old eligible to pass up her senior season and instead turn pro this spring.

"College is the best years of your life, and so I don't think I'd ever give that up," Betts told ESPN. "Why not be spoiled for a whole another year?"

"The way the coaches take care of us in this program, like, how comfortable I am here, and I think that the friendships I've created -- I'd want to do that for another year," she added.

She also cited the opportunity to play with her sister, incoming UCLA freshman forward Sienna Betts, as a factor in her decision to remain in the NCAA.

"I think that I would be crazy if I gave up the opportunity to play with my sister, so obviously, I'm going to come back next year," Betts said.

NCAA basketball UConn Huskies guard Paige Bueckers (5) pose for pictures with UConn Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma honoring 1,000 career point prior to the women's college basketball game between Louisville Cardinals and UConn Huskies.
UConn star Paige Bueckers is expected to go pro this year. (BM. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

WNBA teams eye draft-eligible college athletes

Betts isn't the only top college player weighing her options. A number of factors are impacting the decision NCAA standouts currently face in deciding when to turn pro, from NIL money to the new CBA expected to reshape the WNBA in 2026.

Lottery locks like UConn's Paige Bueckers and Notre Dame's Olivia Miles could technically also opt to stay in school for another year. However, neither has indicated any plans to do so.

Accordingly, WNBA franchises eyeing the upcoming draft have noted that the volatility of the market is affecting first-round pick trades. Teams would be unwise to place their bets on every top NCAA prospect making the leap this April.

UEFA Draw Sets Champions League Quarterfinals

The UEFA Champions League trophy sits on display before the 2024/25 quarterfinals draw.
Eight teams' paths to May's Champions League final in Lisbon were determined in Friday's draw. (Kristian Skeie - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

The 2024/25 Champions League quarterfinals are officially set, with UEFA drawing the remaining eight teams into the field early Friday morning.

The annual season-long competition pits Europe's top leagues against each other. This season, 72 clubs across 50 different leagues qualified for the contest. From the UK to Ukraine, all teams have been vying for the continent's top-dog status amidst a cutthroat atmosphere and a growing sense of parity in the sport.

Two qualifying rounds narrowed the initial teams down to the 16 contending in the tournament's official group stage. Each played six group-stage matches from October through December to determine the eight clubs that advanced to Friday's final draw.

A screen shows the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League quarterfinal pairings at Friday's draw.
Four previous champions made the 2024/25 Champions League quarterfinals. (Kristian Skeie - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

The road to Champions League glory in Lisbon

All remaining clubs are now eyeing the May 24th final in Lisbon, Portugal, and Friday's draw mapped each team's path to that championship match. The 2024/25 quarterfinals will feature four former champions and four seeking a first-ever trophy, with both familiar fights and rarely tested toss-ups on deck.

Both the March quarterfinals and April semifinals employ a two-leg format, offering teams who suffer narrow first losses a shot at second-match redemption.

Friday's draw determined that WSL contenders Arsenal will kick off the tournament's quarterfinals against Real Madrid on March 18th, with Germany's Bayern Munich taking on France's 2024 UWCL runners-up Olympique Lyonnais shortly afterwards.

The following day, Bayern's Frauen-Bundesliga foes Wolfsburg will face Spain's 2024 UWCL champs FC Barcelona. Closing out the initial tilts is a WSL standoff between Manchester City and the UK league's undefeated titans Chelsea FC.

Lyon's Michele Kang, president of the winningest Champions League team in history, speaks to the media after Friday's UEFA draw.
Backed by club president Michele Kang, Lyon will seek its record ninth UWCL title this year. (Kristian Skeie - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

Increased global parity to test UWCL dynasties

With eight of the tournament's 23 titles under their belts, Lyon is the winningest team in UWCL history. Meanwhile, current back-to-back champions Barcelona claimed three of the last four trophies.

Despite the recent two-team domination, capturing this season's title will be a challenge. Hoping to spoil Lyon's and Barcelona's dynastic runs is four first-time title-hunters, plus two-time winners Wolfsburg and early champion Arsenal — who won the trophy in 2007, when the tournament was called the UEFA Women's Cup.

All in all, the European crown has never been tougher to claim, with leagues across the continent increasingly stocking up on standout — and potentially game-changing — players from beyond their borders.

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