Cate Campbell has ventured into rare territory, swimming her way to near collapse to win the women's 200m freestyle on the final night of the NSW State Open Swimming Championships.
The former world record holder for 100m freestyle and the current world record holder for 100m freestyle short course is a self-confessed "drop-dead" sprinter, who dreaded the thought of racing four laps.
But convinced by her coach Simon Cusack that it would benefit her 100m event, she bowed to his judgment again and agreed to stretch herself to the limit.
At the end of the first 50m at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, , was under world record pace and when she turned at the 100m in 55.93 she was only 0.33secs outside Italian Federica Pellegrini's "supersuit" world record split from Rome in 2009.
With the cavalry fast approaching, Campbell tried to hang on to her 1.27 seconds lead over Madi Wilson (Bond) and Mikkayla Sheridan (USC Spartans) and up until 25m to swim, one of the world's finest sprint freestylers had done an extraordinary job.
Campbell used all her might and heart to hang on and scrambled to the wall in a personal best time of 1:58.86 - just 0.09 ahead of Wilson and 0.12 ahead of Sheridan in a blanket finish.
The triple Olympic sprinter added the 200m to her eye-catching wins in the 50m and 100m freestyle and 50m butterfly.
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