The moment when everyone realised Olympic history was on the cards for Emma McKeon came at about 11:47am AEST on Saturday in the pool at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
The 27-year-old from Wollongong had powered through a big program and was on the way towards her ultimate goal — equalling the all-time record of seven medals for a female athlete in any sport at a single Olympic Games.
The key element in the plan relied on a fast recovery. Mere minutes earlier, she had knocked off the latest in a string of Olympic records by clocking 24 seconds dead in the semi-final of the 50m freestyle.
With just six minutes between events, she hopped into the warm-down pool to get the lactic acid out of her legs, then headed back to join her teammates before walking out onto the pool deck for her 11th race of the week.
Given the anchor leg, she was up against Italian great Federica Pellegrini, and the swimmer of the entire week, Caeleb Dressel of the US. She entered the water in fourth spot, half a second behind Pellegrini, and although the Americans were seven seconds adrift, there was still the feeling that Dressel was coming.
McKeon swam a 51.73 split for the final leg, outswimming Pellegrini, China's Junxuan Yang, and Great Britain's Anna Hopkin to ensure the bronze for Australia.
With the two medals on Saturday, McKeon matched Ian Thorpe, Shane Gould and Alicia Coutts as the only Australians to win five medals at a single Games, and she joined Thorpe and Leisel Jones on nine career medals as Australia's most successful Olympic swimmers.
But she wasn't finished yet.
On the final day of the swimming program, McKeon and Cate Campbell were up in the final of the 50m freestyle, and then had a leisurely break of more than 35 minutes before both swimmers backed up in the final event, the women's 4x100m medley relay.
In the single-lap "splash and dash", McKeon knifed into the water and never looked like losing. She stopped the clock with another Olympic record of 23.81 seconds, more than a quarter of a second clear of Sweden's Sarah Sjoestroem.
As a guide, the previous edition of the event in Rio saw a winning margin of just 0.02 seconds.
With her third gold medal and sixth overall medal of the week, McKeon was in rarefied air.
Then, in the final event, she put a full stop on her incredible swim meet with one more team gold, to underline the best ever performance by an Australian team in the Olympic pool.
Where it started
Eight days earlier, it all started with a dead heat.
The Australian hit the water for the 100m butterfly, and 55.82 seconds later she touched, together with China's Yufei Zhang, in a time just 0.34 off the world record.
It was a sign of things to come.
Later on, she put the gold medal away in the third leg of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay.
Following Bronte Campbell and Meg Harris into the pool, McKeon inherited a lead of 0.6 of a second over the United States. But what came next ended the race as a contest.
McKeon's split of 51.35 seconds was at least three-quarters of a second faster than anyone else in the race, and at least 1.8 seconds faster than any of her rivals in the third leg.
By the time Cate Campbell dived in for the anchor leg, the lead had blown out to 2.3 seconds, and Australia was on the way to a world-record-breaking swim.
Australia's female swimmers dominated as a group, particularly in freestyle where they won every event from the 50m to the 400m, plus the women's 4x100 freestyle.
But even within such a strong squad, McKeon shone.
It was a perfectly timed week in the pool, maximising performance where it counted without burning too much energy.
In every individual event, McKeon registered a faster time in the final than in the heats, including in the 50m freestyle, where she lowered the Olympic record in three successive swims.
Overall, McKeon swam 13 races, never finishing out of the first three.
She produced five individual Olympic records and was part of a team Olympic record in the women's 4x100m medley relay and a team world record in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay, not to mention the huge part she played in Australia's most successful Olympic day ever.
McKeon has managed to produce an impeccable Olympic program in these COVID-hit Games, but sadly she will miss out on one honour because of coronavirus restrictions.
Since the Australian Olympic Committee is aiming to have all athletes out of Tokyo within 24 to 48 hours of their last event, McKeon will not be around for the closing ceremony, where her stunning record in the pool would have made her a hot favourite to carry the flag.
Regardless of that disappointment, no-one can deny she has achieved something very special. And with the Paris Games only three years away, only a fool would dismiss her chances of adding to her records in 2024.
