Why Titmus’ Coach was Justified in Humping that Glass
Why Titmus’ Coach was Justified in Humping that Glass
by Matthew Milikin
Ariane Titmus’ win over American Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle this morning has to be considered as one of the best individual Olympic performances of all time.
To paint the picture, Ledecky is indisputably the best female swimmer of all time and at least top two of anyone alongside Michael Phelps. She has never been beaten in an individual Olympic event (until this morning).
In the 800m free Ledecky has 30 of the 31 fastest performances of all time. In the 400m Ledecky has the Olympic, world and junior world records. Her world record of 3:56.46 at the Rio olympics was the first time a woman had ever gone under 4 minutes in the women’s 400m free excluding a performance in 2009 with the super suits, and she did it by 3.5 seconds. She also holds the 1500m record.
In the race this morning Ledecky went out in the first 200m in 1:57.44, finishing the second 200m in 1:59.92. Titmus swam the first 200m in 1:58.1 and the second 200m in 1:58.5. So against the GOAT distance swimmer Ledecky, Titmus swum 1.4 seconds faster in the second 200m of the race and only went 0.4 slower in her second 200m compared to her own first 200m. To have the fitness to be able to do this at an Olympic 400m is insane to say the least, especially when you consider that the first 200m of her race contained the first lap which was off a dive and clocked in at 27.88, considerably faster than the following 7 x 50m segments which were all high 29’s, low 30’s excluding the final 50.
Across the final 3 50m swims of the race, Titmus was faster than Ledecky by 0.5, 0.38, and 0.45 seconds respectively, crazy stamina when you are coming up against an athlete in Ledecky who is better than Titmus at distances over 400m and therefore should have more backend stamina.
In summary Titmus is a GOAT, fuck the US swim team.
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