Awards piling up for world champion swimmer Ariarne Titmus

Both are so far ahead of the next best as to be in a league of their own.

Titmus just needs to get the 400-metre freestyle world record down to 3:55.9994 to complete the comparison.

Keeping pace with the 19-year-old's award nominations of late has become as difficult as trying to stay abreast of Nick Kyrgios dummy spits.

In addition to national recognition like Sport Australia's Don Award and collecting three gongs at Swimming Australia's awards on Sunday, the Tasmanian-raised, Queensland-based phenomenon has been lauded in both the state of her birth and residence.

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One of seven finalists in the Queensland Academy of Sport's sporting excellence award to be announced next Saturday, Titmus last week won the Tasmanian Athlete of the Year award from a distinguished group including fellow world beaters in hockey, rowing, cycling and triathlon.

Unable to collect the award in person due to her rigorous training regime, Titmus was represented by her mum, Robyn, whose perspective revealed the teenage daughter she shares a house with behind the aquatic champion the rest of us only get to see on television.

"She's just our 19-year-old with an untidy bedroom. We call it the floor-drobe," she said.

Robyn ticked four important boxes. She thanked the Tasmanian government, the Tasmanian Institute of Sport and Swimming Tasmania, then she said: "Tasmania will always be home."

She also explained how two other swimming-related Launceston figures had played pivotal roles in her elder daughter's journey.

Reflecting on Ariarne's early love of water, Robyn said it was an observation from the parent of another swimming prodigy who started out at Riverside Aquatic that first laid out the road map towards world domination.

When Ariarne won the under-12 200m medley at state champs in Hobart, Shani Burleigh's father, Craig, was swift to offer his congratulations.

"He just said 'Your daughter knows how to race' and from that point it really upped the ante for her," Robyn said.

And it was a meeting with one of her fellow finalists for the Tasmanian Athlete of the Year award which cemented that road ahead.

Triathlon junior world champion Jake Birtwhistle was the guest speaker at The Examiner's junior sports award in 2014 and presented the female individual overall winner's award to a shy, St Patrick's College student who was already making big waves in the pool.

Robyn said the encounter had an inspirational effect.

"When she first met Jake that night she was blown away and the fact she can inspire other people in the same way now is just amazing."

A year after that meeting, the family moved to Brisbane, two years later Ariarne was medalling at world championships and the couple of years since then have yielded Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacific and world titles plus world records.

Robyn shared the journey with the audience at Wednesday's awards night, from the bold decision to relocate the family to the pinnacle achievement when Ariarne finally beat her nemesis, five-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky in Gwangju in July.

"I still get goosebumps watching that 400m in Korea," she said.

"I did not think she would beat Ledecky. We all had our Aussie yellow T-shirts on and I could see that killer instinct 25m out and it just went off.

"Sometimes you need to understand maybe you've outgrown where you were born. Sometimes that's a gamble.

"She's had to grow up and mature really quickly."

Aside from amusing snippets about bedroom tidiness or lack thereof, Robyn detailed the pressure Ariarne was under heading into a home Commonwealth Games, how she handles the increased media spotlight ("Her father is in the media, I did a bit of media, but she won't listen to us") and how she is tracking seven months out from Olympic selection trials in Adelaide.

"Every day when she walks in and I say: 'How was training?' she always says: 'Hard'."

That hard work is paying off.

In 2017, at her maiden international world titles in Budapest, 16-year-old Titmus failed to qualify for the 800m final after clocking a time which was nearly 17 seconds slower than Ledecky's.

Two years later, Titmus beat her.

The pair's looming reunion in Tokyo next year should be one of the highlights of the 2020 Olympic Games.

It should also be another massive milestone in the history of sport in Tasmania, Queensland and especially Australia.

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