Dame Sophie Pascoe will race just one event at this year's Commonwealth Games, a move she hopes will help deliver gold, but also give her the best chance of making the 2024 Paralympics.
Pascoe was today confirmed in a 12-strong New Zealand swim team for Birmingham, where she'll also have a new coach poolside.
"To challenge myself, changes are needed," said Dame Sophie, who became the first Kiwi to win 10 Paralympic gold medals at Tokyo last year, with 19 trips to the podium across her career.
Pascoe, 29, ended a 20-year coaching relationship with Roly Crichton after those Games and has now teamed up with former Olympian Brett Naylor.
"Brett's sharing new philosophies and new exciting challenges for me leading into Commonwealth Games, and it is refreshing and exciting," she said.
Naylor said: "Soph's one of these people that just wants to be the best she can and if that's the best in the world, so be it and that's where we're going."
They do it a little differently, with Pascoe contesting just one event at the Commonwealth Games, after her exhausting five-event schedule at Tokyo.
"I've cut back on my training significantly and that's because I need to have that balance in my life, which is worth more than putting all those into training that I don't necessarily enjoy as much as I used to."
That approach - focusing on less events, like the 100m freestyle and 200m individual medley where she won gold at Tokyo - could be just what she needs, if she's to continue on to a fifth Paralympics at Paris in two years.
"I do know, if I was to continue ahead within the next two years, that cutting down the events would be the smart thing to do," she said.
Naylor agrees: "As you get older, your work just dovetails into that one event in this case."
This new duo hope that approach will lead to one more Commonwealth Gold, adding to the four from Glasgow 2014 and Gold Coast 2018, and maybe even more Paralympic gold too.
