2009 was the oddest of years with a world championships that produced a hat-full of records, in amongst which there was some fantastic racing, widely derided as a circus and meaningless. Navigating this maelstrom, Britain’s swimmers had a whale of a meet, leading to one of their most successful competitions in the pool but one swimmer stood out from the crowd of medal winners.

Who else could it be? A set of outstanding results during 2008, not least the incredible two Olympic gold medals pocketed in Beijing, led to possibly the easiest decision to date.