NEED TO KNOW
- Following her surprise retirement from competitive swimming, four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus is set to star in Channel Nine’s upcoming reality series SHARK!
- The 25-year-old and five other stars, including Scott Cam and Lynne McGranger, travelled to the Bahamas to swim in open waters, taking on intense open-water diving challenges.
- The show airs on Sunday, May 31, at 7pm on Channel 9 and 9Now and continues on Monday at 7.30pm.
Retired champion swimmer Ariarne Titmus has faced her biggest fear.
The four-time Olympic gold medallist is one of six celebrities taking part in the latest reality series SHARK!, putting themselves to the test to swim with, well, sharks.
Shot in the Bahamas – known as the shark-diving capital of the world – Ariarne was joined by Lynne McGranger, Scott Cam, Sam Thaiday, Matt Nable and Tammy Hembrow.
Sitting down with New Idea, the 25-year-old tells us that sharks are her “biggest fear”, – and for someone who spent a lot of her professional career in the water, she would avoid the sea at all costs.
“When I was presented with the opportunity, I was a flat no … and then it was my partner, Mack, who said to me, ‘I know you, and when you watch this on TV, and you’re not there, you’re going to wish you did it,’” she tells us, adding that “he was right”.
“I thought, when am I ever going to get the opportunity to swim with sharks like this and face my biggest fear ever again? And that’s why I did it,” she says.
Ariarne reveals to us she’s glad she did it, but would “never do it again”.
“I was truly petrified,” she reveals, adding that going on SHARK! was “one of the most confronting experiences” of her life.
“I thought to myself, there is no way I’m ever going to be able to get in the water with ease without a cage. But I did, so I was proud of myself,” she says with a smile.
To help herself make it through the challenges of being face-to-face with sharks in the ocean, she tapped into how she was thinking when she was an athlete and found a quiet corner on the boat to get into the zone.
“It was a very different environment, but when I was competing as an athlete, my mind was my superpower. I always used it to help me with my confidence and my self-belief, and I had to tell myself those same things before the challenges,” she tells us.
Once in the water, Ariarne focused on following the instructions she was given on how to behave and how to notice changes in the shark’s behaviour.
She reveals the show has made her more educated about sharks, and she’s even had a swim in the ocean since filming – something she never usually does.
“It wasn’t out very far, but it’s better than I’ve ever done before. I swam around a cove in quite shallow water, but better than nothing,” she says.
