At the crossroads following the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy was content to do anything but swim up and down a pool.

An individual Olympic gold medal had so far eluded the Queenslander — then aged 27 — and it appeared the dream of topping the podium may forever been out of reach.

But while taking part in activities such as rock climbing, McEvoy began thinking about how to reignite his career.

It was at this time McEvoy cultivated his long-held curiosity about flipping the script and ditching the conventional approach to a sprinter's training.

"For as long as I can remember, I had ideas about doing different things in training," McEvoy told ABC TV's Offsiders.

"I've always just been curious about what you do, why you do it, where that would take you.

"It wasn't until post-Tokyo, where I didn't want to see a pool indefinitely, I really went off and followed whatever interested me.

"That led to rock climbing, gym and general strength philosophies and spending time in that space.

"Over time, without consciously doing it, I would always try to contextualise what I learned and think, 'OK, if I take that and put it in the water, what would that look like for training and how could that affect things?'.

"It built up to a point where … on paper it made logical sense to try and see where it took me."

McEvoy's plan to overhaul his training was one thing.

But finding a coach to support his theories was another challenge he needed to meet.

"Before I went out looking for a place to do this, I wrote up a few documents to summarise my thoughts early," McEvoy said.

"I sent them out for feedback. The feedback was, 'It's interesting but there's no space for this to be done'. 

"That's understandable. There is established ways of doing things. It is tough to balance that with one person. I can see where they were coming from."

Around this time, former Australian representative Robert Hurley put McEvoy in touch with swimming coach Tim Lane.

"In Sydney, at the Pullman Hotel outside the airport in mid to late 2022, I reached out to him (Lane)," McEvoy said.

"We met there. Basically, we had a chat and the premise wasn't to do with the world championships and Olympics and times.

"I was at a point in my career where it was either move on, be proud of what I've done or give something a shot.

"The only thing that Tim really wanted to nail in was the end of this journey or process, that I left the sport with a better relationship to it than what I did at that point.

"It started there. I don't think you could have had a better beginning point for what we've done in the last two years."

The core of McEvoy's vision was swimming fewer kilometres in the pool and spending more time employing land-based training techniques.

Having forged his reputation in the 100m freestyle, he focused on the 50m event to test his methods.

McEvoy and Lane were steadfast they knew what they were doing and over time others — such as Australian head coach Rohan Taylor — came on board.

"I couldn't expand on what I was doing, it was just all in my head," McEvoy said.

"Me and Tim were across it. But regardless of that, he (Taylor) was just like, 'Right, whatever you're doing, I'm intrigued. I'm interested. I will give you the space to do this. Go ahead and see where it goes'."

Those who doubted McEvoy must have been convinced there was merit to his training program when he won gold in the 50 metres freestyle at the 2023 world championships in Fukuoka.

A silver at the Doha world titles last February only confirmed McEvoy was on the right track in the build-up to the Paris Olympics.

The rest is history, as McEvoy finally broke through to win gold at his fourth Olympics.

McEvoy admits he had never previously celebrated like he did after touching the wall in the Paris 50m freestyle final.

He did not use to moment to publicly silence those who questioned his training.

Instead, McEvoy paid tribute to his supporters, especially Lane.

"I've never celebrated like that post-race. I'm usually reserved," McEvoy said.

"I was on the lane rope, banging my chest, pointing to Tim. [It was] awesome."