Ariarne Titmus's retirement from competitive swimming has sent shock waves across Australia and around the world.

The girl from Launceston is still only 25 years old but dominated middle distance swimming for over six years.

The bare numbers behind this iconic athlete's career are incredible enough: Four Olympic gold medals, four long course World Championship titles — and two more in the short course pool, six world records — two of which she still holds, seven Commonwealth Games golds.

To witness Titmus in the pool was to witness brilliance.

Her relentlessly precise arm recovery and smooth entry to the water belied the speed at which she would plough up and down the pool, her powerful catch driving her with an apparent ease that was so transferable from the 200m right the way up to t

See Full Page