When it's time for the 100m butterfly at the European Championship, the reigning champion is missing.
The star Louise Hansson's decision to skip the European Championship and instead OS-genrepa in Rome was made with great reluctance.
I was very keen on being able to defend my gold, so it was tough, she says.
The 27-year-old Helsingborg swimmer ultimately chose to do as OS gold favourite Sarah Sjöström and most of the other Swedish top swimmers.
To choose to opt out of the European Championship in Belgrade and instead OS-genrepa in the classic major competition Sette Colli, which takes place in Rome during the Midsummer weekend.
It's a three-day competition in Rome instead of a whole week at the European Championship. It becomes like a regular competition weekend. I think it's the best preparation for the World Championship, says Louise Hansson.
"Takes a lot of energy"
But it stings not to be able to defend the European Championship gold from 2022. The fact that she has already won the European Championship doesn't make the appetite less.
No, then you wouldn't have needed to continue swimming if you're not hungry for more. But it's a World Championship year and the European Championship usually doesn't come so close. It takes a lot of energy at a championship with everything around it, says Hansson about the European Championship where the 100m butterfly starts on Thursday and the final takes place on Midsummer Eve.
Louise Hansson took World Championship bronze in the 100m butterfly in February and a lot has changed in her World Championship preparations over the past few months.
"Needed a reboot"
The idea was that she and little sister Sophie Hansson, the breaststroke swimmer, would stay in England and Loughborough, where they have lived and trained for the past few years, over the World Championship and then move back home to Sweden.
Now they made the decision to move home already before the games in Paris.
Since April, they have been training at NEC, the national elite centre, in Stockholm.
I felt I needed a reboot. I was stuck, I wasn't swimming well last year. I was training a lot better and felt frustrated, I needed to make a change, says Louise Hansson.
That it happens just a few months before the World Championship doesn't seem dramatic to her.
I did the same thing before Tokyo, a year before, it was much scarier. Then I moved to a country I had never lived in, a city I had never visited and a head coach I had never met, she says about Loughborough.
Now Carl (Jenner) is my head coach and we have worked together in the national team since I was 14-15 years old. It's a group and an environment that is my second home, says Hansson.
The home feeling should give Louise Hansson a boost in Paris. Because at NEC, there are also national team colleagues Sarah Sjöström, Michelle Coleman and Sara Junevik.
It's a new spark, new energy and we can build as a team in the last few weeks leading up to the World Championship, she says.
