Once one of Brazil's top swimmers, Joanna Maranhao has become a powerful voice for change to protect athletes after experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of her childhood coach.
Though nearly a decade away from the thick of the action in the Olympic pool, Maranhao readily recalls bittersweet memories of her trips to the Games.
Remembering her debut in the 400m individual medley in Athens in 2004, the 37-year-old explodes into teenage vitality. "I went for the test event and I came first," she beams.
"I was joking with my coach that this was only time that I was going to win in this swimming pool, because the next time it was going to be the Olympics and the US swimmers were going to be there.
"It was amazing... an amazing experience. I was never as happy for a race as I was in my first Olympic Games. And I'm so glad that I got to have that experience after remembering what happened to me."
Behind the excitement lay darkness. As a child she was sexually abused by her swimming coach.
"It's very difficult for anyone to talk about something so gruelling, especially a nine-year-old," says Maranhão, moments before addressing a Unesco symposium in Paris on gender equality and creating safer environments for athletes.
"Back then, I knew this was uncomfortable, that it was physically painful and embarrassing and overwhelming.
"But I didn't know what it was. I didn't know how to call it rape. I didn't know the term. So within time, I blocked those memories and I just kept going.
"But there is a time that those memories came back. And when they do that's when I kind of understood the severeness of what I had suffered and what it had done to me because I didn't understand... like the passing out, because that's something that happens to me.
"My body just passes out when it's triggered."
Legal reform
Aged 17, Maranhao finished fifth in the final in Athens – still the best performance by a Brazilian woman in the individual medley at the Olympics.
"After Athens, it got very heavy. Even though swimming was pleasant sometimes, but it was always heavy. So I'm glad that I had the chance to just be a swimmer for one Olympic Games."
An attempt to take her own life and depression emerged from the paradox of fearing the arena where she excelled.
With therapy helping to combat the trauma, Maranhao spoke out publicly following the Games in Beijing, where she failed to reach the final in any of her three events.
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Other testimonies of sexual abuse emerged. With that boost, the punch of the star swimmer helped change the way Brazil's judicial system handled such cases.
Before what became known in 2012 as the Lei Maranhao (Maranhao's Law), victims had 16 years to start legal action against their alleged abuser – but once they were 18, they only had six months.
Under the new legislation, after the age of 18, they have 20 years to go the courts.
"That change has brought meaning to my story," Maranhao says. "Because when you go through something like that, you kind of think, 'why did that happen to me? Why did I deserve something like that?' So my fight is for justice and for safe sport.
"The change in Brazil is definitely not the ideal because we think we should ban any statutes of limitation. But now that there's more time is something. It's important."
Maranhao's results at the Olympics in London in 2012 and Rio in 2016 never matched the bravura of Athens.
"That's the biggest 'what if?' and frustration in my life because I know what an amazing swimmer I was," she says today.
"I've always loved hard work... 14 kilometres in one day, 20K in one day, doing the 400m medley 10 times... give it to me, I can train.
"I had no problem with hard work. But I also knew that it was impossible to reach my full potential because when you live the best and the worst experiences and you're balancing that... There was a lot of trauma and panic attacks in the call room just before a race."
'Not safe, but safer'
Today, as a coordinator at the Sports & Rights Alliance, Maranhao oversees the Athletes Network for Safer Sports.
"We are this group of allies, victims, whistleblowers and survivors who want to be part of the solution and heal," she says.
That involves not just personal strength but systemic change.
"We do things like webinars and collaborating with sports governing bodies to improve the system," Maranhao explains.
"When I talk to them I say, 'you need to understand that the result of the abuse is that there is no ending'... There's no overcoming what happened to us and no one chooses.
"So always think about that when you're going to make a decision. You need to go through the moral and ethical aspects of it. I agree it's extremely complex, but I'm a firm believer in the power of making sports safer, not safe.
"It will never be safe, but safer."
New generation
Marriage to the Brazilian former judoka Luciano Correa and a five-year-old son, Caetano, help the journey.
Maranhao smiles too when recounting her life as a swimming commentator for Brazilian TV, where she cheers on her successors on the national team.
"The women still do not have an Olympic medal. We've made finals and I feel like this is a huge chance for those girls," she says.
"It's a new generation and I can see that the girls are working as a team, like supporting each other, just like we did back in 2004. And this means the world when you are going into such a big event."
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Organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympics have been keen to trumpet that theirs are the first Games where the same number of male and female athletes are competing.
The official database of the International Olympic Committee, which administers the Olympic Games, showed 11,215 athletes registered to participate in Paris: 5,712 in men's events and 5,503 in women's events, or a 51-49 percent split.
It's a far cry from when the Games last came to Paris, when only 135 women were allowed into town.
"I'm very much looking forward to my girls," says Maranhao. "And they always catch me crying live. I cry every single time. Like at the world championships in February, they made the finals in the relay and I was like, bawling.
"I was so proud of them. I can't wait to see them at the Olympics."
