Growing up in Tasmania, where swimming wasn’t even seen as a recreational activity, let alone a gateway to Olympic gold, Ariarne Titmus is the first to admit that she really shouldn’t have made it as an Olympic swimmer.
Taking to the stage with Pinterest managing director Melinda Petrunoff for the first session of Cairns Crocodiles 2025, presented by Pinterest, Titmus offered valuable insight into just what it really takes to become on of the world greatest swimmers.
In front of a packed room of creatives and changemakers, Titmus traced her journey from a 14-year-old sleeping in a baby bed in a stranger’s house to standing atop the Olympic podium. It wasn’t fate. It was hard choices, harder training and a mentality that refused to settle.
Watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics on TV, a young Titmus fell in love with the water and begged to be signed up to the local swimming club. By 14, her potential was clear, so, her family made an almost unthinkable decision: leave everything behind and move to Queensland to give her the shot she deserved.
Three weeks after that conversation, the move was done. They didn’t have a house lined up. Ariarne moved into a friend-of-a-friend’s place, sleeping in a baby bed, with no TV, no privacy, just belief and a whole heap of determination.
“I look back and I realise now more as an adult, how tough it was on my Mum and Dad, the sacrifice that they made for me to pursue my dreams” she said.
“I can wholeheartedly say I wouldn’t be the athlete that I am, and I wouldn’t have had the success without that relocation, and I owe my mom and dad everything”.
What struck the audience wasn’t just the story of sacrifice — it was her clarity in saying she owed everything to her parents, but that pressure never came from them.
“I can’t believe they had that faith in me as a 14 year old to pack up our lives and move, and I’m glad that it’s all worked and everything’s happened. But I never felt any pressure for it to happen. Mum and Dad never made it known that it had to happen”.
The ambition was hers. But the transformation began when she met someone who mirrored it.
That someone was Dean Boxall – the notorious coach who went viral for his outlandish celebratory antics.
They met when she was 14. He wasn’t her coach. He wasn’t linked with her team. She remembers thinking he was “nuts” – too intense, too much and recalled thinking, with a laugh, that “this guy is never going to coach me”.
“He just has this outlandish personality. He’s unapologetically himself. He’s just him, and he’s got such a passion for what he does, and he’s an absolute master of his craft,” she recalled.
But something shifted when, at around 15, she found herself in need of a new coach. Boxall talked about work ethic and values in a way that resonated with her like no other coach ever had. He demanded focus, accountability and a level of dedication she hadn’t yet encountered. The next day, she joined his squad.
That decision changed everything.
“Everything he said about work ethic and values and how he likes to design his program, I wanted to be a part of,” she explained.
“Our relationship just clicked.
“When you’re working towards a goal with such magnitude, you have to be so aligned, and your level of trust has to be unbreakable.
“Chasing Olympic gold. Dean was the only person in the entire world that truly knew my goals at the Olympics, we worked together as a partnership to try and achieve them together,” Titmus explained.
From that point on, their partnership was about more than technique or pace times. It was built on absolute trust — the kind where no one else needed to know the goal, because Dean already did.
He also set the tone early with a philosophy that shaped every session: that she only had two options — outstanding or dogshit. Nothing in between.
Even at the highest of highs, this standard shone through. One of those moments was at the 2019 World Championships, which she describes as the first time that she might actually have a chance to beat the, at the time, undefeated, Katie Ladecky.
“She’d never been beaten. And I ended up winning the 400 freestyle and I became world champion for the first time, as well as doing a one and a half second PB, and we were over the moon,” she explained.
“I remember that I had to go into the press conference, and I hadn’t seen Dean since the race. So he walks in the back and he starts mouthing to me… dogshit”.
It wasn’t cruelty. It was clarity. Dean understood that in the Olympic arena, everyone works hard.
The difference isn’t in the laps, it’s in the mindset. She believes her strength is mental resilience, and that Dean honed it through brutal honesty and unrelenting expectations.
“Everyone knows how to train hard if you’re willing to do the work, but it’s up to your mental capacity and your willingness to put yourself on the line, your body on the line, to actually get that last little 1 per cent or 2 per cent out of you physically,” Titmus explained.
“So as much as it’s the physical training, the only way to get to the upper echelon of physical training is if you have that mental strength.
“That’s something that I’ve worked on a lot with Dean. I’ve actually never spoken to a sports psychologist in my life. I believe that my strength in training and racing has been my mental strength”.
That resilience was tested again in late 2023 when she discovered a tumour on her ovary. Nine months out from the Olympics, she was given a choice: leave it and push through, or have it removed and risk future fertility. She chose surgery — and perspective.
“I realised during that whole period what actually life is about. Life is about so much more than your job and your career and your sport. It’s about your family and having your own family one day and being passionate about other things,” she explained.
Boxall wasn’t just there for training plans. He called the surgeon himself to get the details — not to second-guess, but so when Titmus felt pain, he could remind her she was okay and push her harder when he needed to. It was a brutal kind of care, but one rooted in unshakable belief.
Their shared philosophy – to embrace the pain, lean into the discomfort, and never let complacency in – is why she trains up to 12 hours a day, with fewer than two weeks off a year.
It’s also why, when she says she hopes to inspire others, she means it. She knows what it’s like to want something impossible, and to find out it isn’t.
“There’s so many people that watch me on TV and watching my victory can maybe inspire them to try something new, or give something else a crack,” she said. “It could give them the strength to just go for it”.
“I shouldn’t have been an Olympic champion swimmer, I’m from little old Tassie – this, cold and freezing place. It shouldn’t have happened for me. But I hope that stories like mine can inspire people and little girls down the street, or little boys down the street, or anyone.
“I just feel so proud that I have that position now, to inspire people”.
Titmus’ story isn’t one of fate, it’s one of choice, cost, and relentless conviction. And if there’s one thing Titmus has proven, it’s that success isn’t defined by natural talent or a perfect path, it’s earned through sacrifice, brutal honesty, and a mindset built to withstand anything.
