Five days into the Olympic swim meet, one thing has become perfectly clear: Ariarne Titmus is fast becoming swimming’s new queen.
For the second time in three days, Titmus, the young Australian sensation, won a gold medal, this time in the 200-meter freestyle, beating a field that included Katie Ledecky, the reigning Olympic champion in the event.
Five years after her victory, though, Ledecky was far off Titmus’s pace and clearly has all that she can manage at distances of 400 meters or less. Titmus claimed her second gold medal of the games and a sweet victory for swimming-mad Australia, winning in 1:53.