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Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O'Callaghan sat wordlessly alongside one another in the holding room.
Titmus says she listens to music before races partially to pump her up and partially to make sure nobody tries to talk to her. She need not have worried as O'Callaghan was hardly in the mood for a chat.
This women's 200m freestyle final had been circled in the program months ago as potentially the best race at these Olympic Games. In Titmus and O'Callaghan, we were to be treated to the two fastest women to ever compete in this discipline, with this the stage of their ultimate showdown.
Many miles removed from their shared St Peters Western training base, Paris would settle things once and for all.
When her name was called O'Callaghan walked to the blocks at breakneck speed, never once lifting her eye-line above her starting position. Titmus followed with a far more relaxed strut, offering a wave to the crowd before getting down to business.
One of them knew all about this pressure and how to conquer it. The other was anxious to find out if she could too.
It all happened so fast, but what almost immediately became clear was that Titmus wasn't going to have this race all her own way. Arnie always likes to get out quickly, establish a lead and make the field come and get her, which more often than not they cannot.
Here, Titmus couldn't shake O'Callaghan on her shoulder, and was trailing Hong Kong's Siobhan Bernadette Haughey for most of the race. She was caught in the scrap.
O'Callaghan, on the other hand, lives for that stuff. Keep her in contention to the last 50 and then watch her explode.
Mollie was fifth after 50m, fifth after 100m, third after 150m — and then she pushed the button.
She was nearly 0.6 seconds faster than Titmus in the final 50m and just about two seconds quicker than Haughey. O'Callaghan sensed her moment and captured it — the mark of an Olympic champion.
To the untrained eye, O'Callaghan's most immediate reaction seemed to be relief. There were no wild celebrations or an outbreak of tears, just a deep breath and a smile. Job done, finally.
O'Callaghan and Titmus shared a hug in the pool and another just outside it. Notably, it was O'Callaghan who grabbed Titmus's hand and raised it in the air in both a celebration of their shared triumph and perhaps some subconscious recognition of the athlete whose greatness has inspired her own.
It's worth the occasional reminder that Titmus is only 23 years old, theoretically still much closer to the start of her career than the end.
The extent of her accomplishments, combined with the maturity and self-assuredness with which she carries herself, can make Titmus seem far older and more experienced than she is. In truth, she too is a young woman, just one with some remarkable gifts.
It's easy to paint Titmus as the conquering hero and O'Callaghan as the rising young upstart, but in reality the two are competing as equals.
O'Callaghan was asked to list some of her swimming heroes for the IOC's bio page ahead of the Games. She named Minna Atherton, Emma McKeon and Kaylee McKeown.
There is no bad blood between Titmus and O'Callaghan, but it is a genuine rivalry between two of the very best in the world.
As of only a few months ago, O'Callaghan was the best 200m freestyle swimmer in the world. Titmus took her crown and her world record at the Olympic trials in June, suddenly returning O'Callaghan to the role of chaser.
O'Callaghan has freely admitted it's a position that sits more comfortably with her, but it's one she now must forgo for good. At just 20 years old, she is a four-time Olympic gold medallist, with this her first in an individual event.
Titmus took her silver in her stride and was more than gracious in narrow defeat, seeming almost pleased to allow O'Callaghan her moment.
As the pair laughed with each other on the Olympic dais, standing shoulder to shoulder with not one above the other, they were free at last to reflect on their many mornings of toil and write them off as worthwhile.
Loading...The tears came later, for O'Callaghan when she saw and embraced her parents for the first time. The moment hit Titmus, too, once the pair faced the television cameras and waiting media, and the context of the evening suddenly became clear.
For the rest of us, whose entire lives haven't been devoted to training for that exact moment, what a thrill it was to watch two Australians step onto that stage and dominate the rest of the world.
National parochialism was never meant to be the point of the modern Olympics — no, really — but there is something undeniably special about seeing two young Aussies represent our country in that way.
A tweet has been doing the rounds over the last couple of days, sent by an American, asking why Australians are so good at swimming.
After that poor American was thoroughly dunked on by all and sundry, it did become clear that our national relationship with this sport, especially come Olympics time, is very unique.
But even within that, nights like this are still rare.
Nobody was more aware of that than these two champion swimmers, who in those glory-soaked minutes after the race shed their hyper-professional skins and simply became friends, bonded forever by the moment.
You could have been forgiven for thinking they were an ordinary pair of early-20s Aussies, if not for the medals hanging around their necks.