Ariarne Titmus has etched her name in the record books after her recent Olympic feats, but she has a goal in life that is stronger than swimming - a goal that was almost ripped away from her. 

Titmus' achievements have placed her among the elite ranks of Australian swimmers in Olympic history. 

She is the first woman in nearly a century to defend the 400m freestyle title successfully, and the first Australian woman to win consecutive Olympic titles in any swimming event since Dawn Fraser, who claimed the 100m freestyle at three consecutive Olympics from 1956 to 1964. 

Gold medals in the 200m and 400m freestyle events, including 'the race of the century' against American Katie Ledecky on the opening night of competition in Paris have cemented her as one of the all-time Olympic greats.

And Titmus is scarily only 23, meaning she could do it all again in Los Angeles in four years time and still be a force on home soil when the Olympics arrive to Brisbane in 2032. 

However it all could have come undone before it even started in Paris, after a routine MRI for a niggling hip injury.

Instead, doctors found a growth in her ovary that needed removing which sent Titmus into a panic. Not because of the potential for cancer, not because it could cost her the swimming career she had worked so hard for, but because it could have cost her a chance of becoming a mother. 

'I want to be a mother so badly some day, so for me the fear of potentially losing that ovary really hit me hard,' Titmus told News Corp.

'I feel so much gratitude to the radiographer who had scanned everything so thoroughly because if he hadn't I would probably still have it in me. 

'So when it happened I just wanted to do everything properly, so I would be fine to have children one day. 

'I was just like 'get it out, get it out'.

Titmus revealed she still felt a tugging sensation in her abdominals as late as February, making her Paris achievements even more sensational. 

But she revealed the desire to be a parent one day had dominated her thoughts over the Paris Games.  

'When you are training for the Olympics you are very much in a bubble,' she said.

You worry about things like shoulder injuries and keeping your body in check to train, and you forget about life post swimming, and for me the purpose of my body is to carry babies one day, 

I have a huge desire to be a mother, so that put things in perspective for me.'