Tokyo, SAEDNEWS: Boxall says Titmus, his new Olympic champion athlete, has now told him “you need to settle down”. The dramatic antics of the Queensland coach, who trains at the St Peters Western club and has six swimmers on the Olympic team, was, he said, a bizarre result of “me going outside of my body’’.“I think I was more emotional than her,’’ he said, crying in the stands as Titmus received her gold medal.
It just came out. I’d built it up in trials, I just... you know, it was coming through, the race unfolding, and then when I saw, you know, I couldn’t keep it in.
Boxall was filmed stalking up and down the rear of the aquatic stands, going berserk and then shuddering the glass barrier in front of him with some pelvic thrusts; all the while with a Japanese volunteer trying to control the beast.
Boxall’s elation was understood by those that know Titmus best.
“It has been an incredible journey for us all, said Titmus’ father Steve after the race.
“There is such a great relationship between Dean Boxall and Ariarne. That is what emotion is all about.
“The past five years have been incredible. But the past two years in particular, every day of training has been worked out to get to the point of where we got to today — yesterday. That is why it is emotional.”
Titmus had turned at the 350m of the 400m freestyle slightly ahead of the legendary US swimmer Katie Ledecky, following the game plan that Boxall had mapped out, and she then pulled ahead in the final strokes to win the gold.
“Katie was so far in front of us that in the beginning when I started to coach her we couldn’t have that conversation.
“Arnie (Titmus) came to me when she was a 4min12 swimmer, and then at that stage Katie was a 3min56, so that’s a 16 second difference. We just started chipping away and then we started to believe’’ (Source: The Australian).
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