Close your eyes for a moment. Take a breath. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about swimming? Not just any type of swimming but the type that could one day lead you to standing at the top of a medal podium singing the national anthem.
Early starts, endless hours following the black line, gut-busting training sessions, relentless coaches and a career path that, in many cases, comes to an end in your early 20s (if you're lucky). Yep, all of those can be the case.
But what about things like flexibility, the ability to have an education and even a social life? Spurred on by polling that shows many competitive swimmers leave the pool disheartened, burnt-out and with limited options, Swimming Victoria is looking to reshape the sport's image into one that takes into account the athletes' overall development – performance-based, socially, and academically.
For Swimming Victoria chief executive Jason Hellwig it's about "rewiring the culture of the sport just to relax a bit more".
"It's a resetting of what people have had as a cultural norm in swimming for decade after decade after decade.
"We're really keen to evolve the focus of the sport certainly in the Victorian context so that it's about developing people ... whether they become high-performance athletes or not, we want everyone to feel really positive about the contribution it makes to their lives."
To help do this, Swimming Victoria have appointed former Olympic swimmer and world champion Linley Frame to guide swimmers, coaches and, importantly, parents into a mindset that athletes no longer need to sacrifice education and social life.
An aspect of that is to change the traditional view, often based on extraordinary achievements of the likes of Ian Thorpe, that unless swimmers had "made it" by the time they were in their late teens, they would never make it at the elite level. Frame, who was regarded as a late bloomer when she won a world title at 19, said elite athletes were getting older so it was about "keeping kids in the pool longer and supporting them".
"When I was growing up if you didn't make it at a teenage age group you were never going to make it," said Frame, who is Swimming Victoria's athlete and coach services coordinator.
"That's not the case these days and the greatest opportunity that athletes have is post year 12 or VCE, that is when they're hitting their peak strength. They finish growing, their bodies are starting to settle down from going through puberty and actually that's the greatest time for them to capitalise on all the areas that they need to.
"... I think if we can get the message across that they need to be patient and that the opportunity will be there for them, then I think they will be able to take a bit of a breath and not feel like they're racing against the clock all the time to get everything done as quickly as possible."
Hellwig said encouraging coaches to adopt more flexible training programs that allowed swimmers to also concentrate on their studies was a major plank of the approach.
"We don't want swimmers to ever feel as though they have to choose between taking care of their education or their one shot at being an Olympic or Paralympic swimmer," Hellwig said.
"[Coaches] have got to have a rapport with people at the human level. You've got to be part of their development as a person and be empathetic and emotionally intelligent around how you engage and nurture and support [the swimmers]."
Swimming Victoria has also recently banned the use of hi-tech suits for children under 12 years old in competition. Hellwig said it was a decision that, while largely accepted, did meet with protests from some parents who wanted to give their children every edge they could. However, he was unapologetic, saying "this is absolutely the right decision and we're really proud of it."
"Every sport faces a challenge of parents who are, for whatever reason, placing a high-performance ambition on very young children and the best thing we can do is educate and set the standard for a culture that is supportive and nurturing," he said.