Australia's Ariarne Titmus surges to second Tokyo gold medal in nail-biting 200m freestyle victory

The Australian swimmer has followed up her historic 400m freestyle gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics with another win, surging home to claim the 200m freestyle in Olympic-record time.

Ariarne Titmus during the womens 200m freestyle final

Ariarne Titmus during the womens 200m freestyle final Source: AAP

Australian swimmer Ariarne Titmus has stormed home to win her second gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics in the women's 200-metre freestyle.

Titmus followed with victory in the 200m in Wednesday's final.

Titmus' second gold lifts Australia's medal tally at the Tokyo Games to seven gold, one silver and five bronze medals.

Titmus' 200m final was billed as another match race against US great Katie Ledecky.

Ledecky finished fifth, with Titmus' main challenge coming from China's Hong Kong based swimmer Siobhan Bernadette Haughey.
Haughey held the lead until the last 20 metres.

But Titmus finished in a flurry to achieve a nail-biting win in an Olympic record time of one minute and 53.50 seconds.

Haughey (1:53.92) took silver with Canadian Penny Oleksiak (1:54.70) claiming bronze.

Titmus joins Shane Gould in 1972 as Australian woman to complete the 200m-400m golden double at an Olympics.

She will meet Ledecky once more at the Tokyo Games, over 800m, with the American the red-hot favourite over the longer distance.

Golden rowers

Shortly before Titmus’ win on Wednesday, Australia also won two gold medals in rowing.

With the event returning to the Olympic rowing schedule after almost a 30-year absence, the Australian women's coxless four crew of Rosie Popa, Lucy Stephan, Annabelle McIntyre and Jessica Morrison stormed to gold.

The Australians held off the fast-finishing Netherlands crew, while Ireland won bronze.

The Australian men's coxless four crew of Alex Purnell, Spencer Turrin, Jack Hargreaves and Alex Hill made it a golden rowing double with a gold in their event.

While Australia won gold in the men's four in 1992 and 1996 to earn the ‘Oarsome Foursome’ tag, Great Britain had won the event at every Olympics since.

The Aussies crossed the line in an Olympic best five minutes 42.76 seconds, with Romania 0.37 seconds behind.


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2 min read
Published 28 July 2021 12:09pm
Updated 22 February 2022 2:01pm
Source: AAP, SBS



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