Training partners Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan swam the two fastest women’s 200m freestyle times in history with Titmus shattering the world record at the Australian Olympic Trials on Wednesday.
Titmus, the Tokyo Olympic 200m and 400m free gold medalist, clocked 1 minute, 52.23 seconds, taking 62 hundredths off O’Callaghan’s world record set at last July’s world championships.
“I’m just really happy to finally produce a swim in the 200m that I feel like my training reflects,” Titmus said on Australia’s Nine network.
Titmus took silver to O’Callaghan at the 2023 Worlds in, at the time, the third-fastest swim in history.
O’Callaghan, who like Titmus trains under coach Dean Boxall in Brisbane, also went under her world record by touching in 1:52.48 to make the Olympic team in the event.
O’Callaghan made her Olympic debut in Tokyo at age 17 as a relay-only swimmer.
She then won 100m free gold and 200m free silver at the 2022 World Championships and gold in both events at the 2023 Worlds.
On Tuesday at trials, O’Callaghan was second in the 100m backstroke to world record holder Kaylee McKeown and became the fourth-fastest woman in history in that event.
“I’m not really experienced just yet; I’m still learning,” she said. “I’m still really getting used to this 200m freestyle.”
No other active swimmer has ever recorded a 200m free time within a second of Titmus and O’Callaghan’s performances on Wednesday.
The last Australian one-two in swimming at the Olympics was when Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett did so in the men’s 400m free in 2004.
The last time it happened for the Australian women was in the 1996 200m butterfly — Susie O’Neill and Petria Thomas.
The last U.S. woman to win an Olympic or world medal in the 200m free was Katie Ledecky, who took gold at the 2015 Worlds and 2016 Olympics and silver at the 2017 Worlds.
Ledecky made the U.S. team in the 200m free for worlds in 2022 and 2023 and chose not to swim it at those meets to focus on longer events and the 4x200m free relay.
She has not announced whether she plans to race the 200m free in Paris, should she finish in the top two at trials that start Saturday in Indianapolis.
2024 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials TV, live stream schedule
The U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials air live on NBC Sports and Peacock from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
