Emily Seebohm made the tough call to scratch herself from a world championships final to give herself every shot at 100m backstroke glory in Barcelona.
The London Olympic silver medallist began her backstroke campaign with a comfortable heat swim on Monday to qualify fifth fastest behind American star Missy Franklin.
Seebohm was meant to race in both the backstroke semis and the 200m individual medley final on Monday night, having qualified for the latter with an impressive semi-final swim on Sunday.
But, with some minor health concerns, the 21-year-old opted not to take any chances with her pet event.
"I'm not really at my 100 per cent at the moment," said Seebohm, citing asthma and a cold.
"I'm struggling a little bit with sickness, which isn't unusual for me, but I've got two pretty tough races back-to-back.
"My coach (Matt Brown) said it was my call and it's hard to make that call when you want to do it.
"I'm disappointed I can't swim in the IM but I've got to do what I can to get where I need to be in the 100 back."
Seebohm's heat swim of 1min 0.02secs was considerably slower and far less spectacular than her opening swim in London, where she clocked an Olympic-record 58.23 in the preliminaries.
However she failed to replicate the time in the semis and final and had to settle for silver behind Franklin.
This time, Seebohm is targeting progression in her times from the heats to final.
"That's a slowish start for me so hopefully it works out better," Seebohm said.
Franklin was an interested observer during Seebohm's heat after the American early clocked 59.13 to lead the field into the semis.
Hungarian Katinka Hosszu was second-fastest in 59.40 but then withdrew from the semis.
Australian Ashley Delaney topped qualifying for the 100m backstroke finals in 53.60.
Australians Cameron McEvoy and Thomas Fraser-Holmes both reached the semi-finals of the 200m freestyle.
McEvoy backed up from the men's 4x100m freestyle final on day one to be fifth fastest in 1:47.34 behind top qualifier Robert Renwick (1:46.88) of Britain.
Fraser-Holmes said he struggled to blow off the cobwebs in his first swim of the meet as he clocked 1:48.05 to be 12th fastest.
Either of the Australians can get themselves into medal contention if they produce their best in a wide-open field, with big guns Ryan Lochte and Yannick Agnel not at peak fitness and Michael Phelps retired.
"Anyone can really come through but my best time is still a long way off so my main focus is to drop that down step by step until Rio (2016)," McEvoy said.
Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte produced the swim of the morning, almost breaking the world record in the heats of the women's 100m breaststroke.
Meilutyte, 16, clocked 1:04.52 to fall seven one-hundredths of a second outside Jess Hardy's world mark set in a now-banned supersuit in 2009.
Australians Sally Foster (1:07.59) and Sam Marshall (1:08.33) also moved into the semis.
Australian 14-year-old Chelsea Gubecka (16:21.82) clocked a PB in the heats of the non-Olympic women's 1500m freestyle but missed the final.
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