Rio de Janeiro: There was a point in the final, desperate stages of the men's 100m freestyle final when the main players felt their legs failing and their arms morphing into concrete pillars. The dreaded "wall" had been reached.
Not for Kyle Chalmers. That part of the race is his office, his playground. The 18-year-old "loves the sting", he said after his gold medal in the sprint feature. When his muscles started to combust, it wasn't a warning that he was about to fade. It meant he knew he was about to win.
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Who is Kyle Chalmers?
Australia's new gold Olympian is a year 12 student from Adelaide, once heading for a career in AFL.
"When I got to that last 15m and started burning up, I knew that I'd done so much training and could push myself. I glided a little bit into the wall but I didn't have any more to give," Chalmers said.
Not since Michael Wenden in 1968 has an Australian won the 100m freestyle crown, the jewel in the men's Olympic program. Favourites had come and gone and another did in Rio, with Cameron McEvoy finishing seventh. Naturally perplexed yet brave in defeat, he will try to reset for the 50m event.
Instead it was his unheralded Dolphins teammate that stormed through the pack, taking down America's Olympic champion Nathan Adrian (bronze) in the process, with Belgium's Pieter Timmers a surprise second to Chalmers' surprise first (47.48s).
In glorious hindsight, it shouldn't have arrived as such a shock. Chalmers was the form swimmer through the heats and semis and second only to Adrian in qualifying for the final.
But few dared to believe the junior prodigy could really go with the superstars when they unleashed their best on the grandest of stages. Chalmers evidently did and probably would have said as much, if anybody had ventured to ask.
Already campaigning in McEvoy's shadow, he avoided interviews in the lead-up to the Games. Yet deep down and within his closest entourage of coaches and mentors, there was a rumbling that something special was about to go down.
With 50m down, Chalmers was seventh in a compact field. He began to stoke up for his signature late rush, hauled in another bull of a man in Adrian and powered to the wall to become Australia's second youngest swimming gold medallist since Ian Thorpe (17) in Sydney in 2000.
"I think it's that I had that mental belief I could do that. I've been training to go 47.5, so to turn around and see that on the board was very exciting for me. It's just having that mental courage to be able to control my first 50 and work that back end," Chalmers said.
"I wanted to do something special tonight. Everything has fallen into place and I'm very grateful the way everything has worked out."
Aside from national age crowns, prior to Wednesday night Chalmers didn't have a single open swimming title to adorn the bedroom wall. He did concede afterwards that he "did OK'' at his school swimming carnival earlier in the year. (The year 12 student was named four-time male champion of the pool at the carnival.)
Now he has an Olympic gold medal, which has more than vindicated his decision to spurn a potential AFL career in favour of swimming. The son of AFL football player Brett Chalmers, he found himself at a fork in the road last year before making the difficult call to spurn a sport that fairly pumps through his veins.
"Six months before worlds (FINA World Championships) last year I cracked a bone in my wrist and did the ligaments in my ankle. I got a call from the head coach of Australia (Jacco Verhaeren).
"My swimming coaches at home said football and swimming were no longer both an option. I had to choose. I made the decision to be a swimmer but there's no regrets now, none at all."
As he cut a swath through the junior ranks, Chalmers was already being whispered about as the next edition of Ian Thorpe, so it was fitting the Australian great was the one to write Chalmers a letter on the eve of the Games.
"He's someone I looked up to my whole life. He wrote me a letter and gave me some great advice, just to take it all in and enjoy every moment. I've had Eamon Sullivan message me, a lot of other people who've achieved so much in the sport. It really helped."
The lofty comparisons won't stop at Thorpe. The way Chalmers reels off his finishes has inklings of Michael Phelps but even that would hardly rattle Australian swimming's newest star. Relaxed to the point of casual disinterest in his own sport, he much prefers to watch basketball and his hero Kevin Durant.
As he attempted to digest what had just unfolded, Chalmers' immediate thoughts were for McEvoy, who has been his roommate in Rio and is one of his closest friends.
"There's some mixed emotions, racing against one of my great mates Cameron McEvoy. It's hard winning and him not swimming his best. I know he's got a lot to go and turn it around," Chalmers said.
But a new world order had threatened to take shape as Chalmers raced through the early rounds. By 11:15pm on Wednesday night, it had dawned. As McEvoy would soon warn, the best of Chalmers is yet to be seen.
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