Ariarne Titmus: ‘I was all or nothing – achieve it or fail. And I guess that’s not a great way to be’

From a life tracing the black line three metres below the water’s surface, to one marked by shades of grey, Ariarne Titmus is still adapting. Now 26, and two years removed from her final competitive event, she recognises her excellence as a swimmer only partly prepared her for what came next.“I look at a lot of things in my life pretty black and white, which is probably not a good way to be sometimes,” she says. “In my swimming career, I was all or nothing. I was win or lose. I was achieve it, or fail. And I guess that’s not a great way to be in life.”The challenges of the present are more nuanced than times and tumble-turns. Titmus is pursuing a career in media while building a new life in Melbourne with her fiance Mac Powell, after becoming engaged last month. This week she is on a tour to promote the release of her memoir, Relentless, co-written with the former journalist Phil Lutton.Titmus was dubbed “Arnie” as a play on her name, but it also reflected a ruthless, almost robotic approach to competition akin to the Terminator. Reflecting on her young life, however, she is open and thoughtful, and very much aware of her mortality. She describes two cysts removed from her right ovary – “made up of cartilage and … my colour hair, like it had been pulled out of a hairbrush” – with unvarnished honesty. The implications for her fertility due to these “monstrous-looking things” is one part of her life that is no longer simply win or lose.“I’ve definitely tried to change my outlook on a few areas of my life and not live with that super intense mindset that I had to have to be successful in the pool,” she says. “Because I don’t have to be like that any more.”Ariarne Titmus’s memoir Relentless is being released this week. Photograph: Julian KingmaHer four Olympic gold medals, alongside three silver and one bronze, made her one of Australia’s most recognisable athletes. Her book details how she moved to Brisbane as a teenager to further her career, and came under the tutelage of Dean Boxall. The flamboyant coach features heavily in the book – 229 times his name is mentioned in 304 pages – and she described their relationship as “intense, emotional, joyous, trying at times and increasingly complex”.The tome is scattered with examples of Boxall’s motivational psychology, including once when he made a song and dance about Summer McIntosh bettering the 400m world record of Titmus. “Arnie’s world record is GONE,” Boxall shouted in front of their swimming squad, in a moment that Titmus remembers as “disrespectful and demeaning”. Ultimately, she felt the tactic – and Boxall’s approach generally – did get the best out of her in her long-running rivalry with American Katie Ledecky.“I hope that when people read the book, they understand in the tough moments when we had a few blow-ups – and he certainly pushed me extremely hard – that they understand the context that it was in.“We were trying to be the best that we possibly could be and win at the Olympic Games. And in order to win, we had to take down the greatest ever, so it was quite an unusual challenge. The trust I had in him meant that whatever direction we had to take, I believed it was the right way.”Titmus says while other young swimmers need compliments and encouragement, she was tuned to another wavelength. “I need to be held accountable and pushed and given that ‘bad cop’ reaction,” she says.“For sure, some days I’d get frustrated that I have guys next to me in the pool swimming nowhere near as well as I was and they’re getting rained on with accolades, and I’d get nothing. But I knew that it was all for a bigger cause, and that’s the way that we had to do it. And I wouldn’t change a thing.”Dean Boxall celebrates as Titmus wins gold in the 400m freestyle final at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Photograph: Sarah Stier/Getty ImagesThe pair are still close. They no longer talk much about swimming, though, apart from reminiscing from time to time. She says she looks forward to his reaction to the book, and hopes he can laugh at the anecdotes collected from their time together. Most of all, she just hopes for the best for Boxall.“I just always check in and make sure he’s OK, because what you see on the pool deck is like 1% of his passion that he exudes every day,” Titmus says.“He puts so much of his life into his job as a coach, he’s so passionate about it that sometimes I worry what would he do if he didn’t have it? Sometimes I worry that he doesn’t put himself first.”Titmus in Paris, with one of her four Olympic gold medals. Photograph: John Walton/PAThe book goes into detail about how Titmus underwent surgery to remove a growth on her ovary in 2023 – before coming back at Paris to defend her 400m crown against Ledecky and McIntosh – and how it affected her view of the world.“Readers can put two and two together and realise that the moments that I went through with my fertility and the egg freezing and what I was told by doctors really left me with a big decision,” she says, explaining that she suddenly felt the need to invest in other parts of her life – like her relationship with her fiance and her career outside swimming – before she reached her 30s.Last year she was told only one ovary was still producing follicles, and her egg count was low. In addition to freezing her eggs, she was encouraged by doctors not to wait too long to try to fall pregnant. “It was ultimately the final reason why I decided to retire,” she says.“With everything that I’ve been told by doctors, I really hope that [falling pregnant] is not too challenging, but if it is, if there’s a will, there’s a way. I guess I just wanted to give myself that space to live a bit of life before I have to move into that next chapter, which when it does come, I’m very excited for.”Titmus says she spoke to Ash Barty about her decision to retire from swimming. Photograph: STF/AFP/Getty ImagesThe decision not to come back to swimming after Paris was not easy to make. Struggling with it, she reached out to the Australian tennis champion Ash Barty, who stepped away from her own sport at the peak of her powers in her mid-20s. They met at Barty’s house in Brisbane, and the three-time grand slam singles champion told her something that stuck with her: that it is better if people ask why you are retiring, not when.Titmus has thought about how she might approach the prospect of swimming with her own children, if she were to have a family. They would definitely do swim classes, but she would never force them into competition. “If they do want to do swimming then they’re going to have to tell me if they want to do it for fun or if they want to do it seriously, because it’s two very different approaches,” she says.“If they want to take after mum, go for it. It’s a very hard life, but if they want to, they can do it. But if they want to do something else – and they might not even be sporty – they can do whatever they want.”