Ahmed Jaouadi said he spent months battling depression following a disappointing end to 2024 but the Tunisian was all smiles on Wednesday after winning the 800 metres freestyle title in the third-fastest time ever at the world championships in Singapore.
Jaouadi had finished third in the event at the Budapest short course world championships last December and the 20-year-old was so disheartened by the result he did not return to training until March.
However, his performance at the Singapore Sports Hub proved he had no reason to doubt himself.
Jaouadi reached the wall in seven minutes, 36.88 seconds, a time that sits behind only China's Zhang Lin (7:32.12) and fellow Tunisian Ous Mellouli (7:35.27) in the all-time list.
Both Zhang and Mellouli achieved their marks in 2009 wearing high-tech "supersuits", which are now banned.
"Actually it means a lot. It's the third-best time ever," said Jaouadi.
"It feels great. Especially this season. I didn't go back to training until March. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this. After Budapest, I got into some kind of depression and I wasn't ready to go back to training at some point.
"It makes me really happy. During the last days of training, I was expecting this, and I knew that I'll go fast. But at some point, I didn't have a lot of confidence going through.
"My team, my staff, the people around me knew how to control things and helped me through this."
Jaouadi made his move after the halfway mark to beat the German pair of Sven Schwarz and Lukas Martens in the final and win his first major title.
"I just pushed my head down. I saw that as soon as I started to push down on my arms, I started to go faster than the others, I started to pull away," he added.
Jaouadi dedicated his gold medal to compatriot and Tokyo Olympics 400 freestyle champion Ahmed Hafnaoui, who was given a 21-month suspension in April by the Aquatic Sports Integrity Unit for three whereabouts failures.
"This one was for Hafnaoui," Jaouadi added.
"He's having some hard times now and I'd like to offer it for him."