Ariarne Titmus opens Australia Olympic swimming trials with near world record

Ariarne Titmus helped set the stage for an Olympic showdown by swimming the second-fastest 400m freestyle in history to open Australia's trials for the Paris Games.

Titmus clocked 3 minutes and 55.44 seconds, missing his world record by six hundredths in Brisbane. She was 39 hundredths shy of her world record at 350 meters.

“(Coach) Dean (Boxall) texted me this afternoon saying you're free as a bird,” she told Australian network Nine. “So I had a free kick. I knew that if I did my job tonight, I would go to Paris. The pressure was also a little low. As long as I did my job, everything would be fine. It was so no more chance for me to practice my race plan and see how it would go what happens here doesn't matter, what matters is what happens in six weeks.

Titmus, the reigning Olympic and world champion in the 400m freestyle, now has five of the seven fastest times in history.

In March 2023, Canadian Summer McIntosh, then 16 years old, won the world record ahead of Titmus. Four months later, Titmus was back on top at the world championships.

Katie Ledecky, the Rio Olympic gold medalist in the event, held the world record from 2016 until Titmus broke it for the first time in 2022.

Ledecky will attempt to qualify for Paris in that event on the first night of the U.S. Olympic Trials Saturday in Indianapolis, live on NBC, NBCOlympics.com and Peacock.

Also Monday, Kaylee McKeown won the 200m individual medley in 2:06.63 to become the third fastest ever in the event.

The only fastest swimmers in history are Hungarian Katinka Hosszu (2:06.12, 2:06.58) and American Ariana Kukors (2:06.15).

McKeown set the world's best time in almost eight years in an event where American Kate Douglass is the two-time reigning world champion.

“You never know what can happen, the Americans will be in contention next week (at the US Olympic trials),” McKeown said. “So I'm just going to do my best, and I hope that in Paris my foot feels better.”

McKeown is the reigning Olympic and world champion and world record holder in the 100m and 200m backstroke.

In the 200m IM, she won silver at the 2022 Worlds, then was disqualified after her semifinal at the 2023 Worlds for an illegal turn.

In Paris, the women's 200m IM semi-finals will take place approximately 50 minutes after the women's 200m backstroke final on August 2.