Friday, 8 March 2019:
 | | JESSICA HANSEN of Australia reacts during the Women's 50m Breaststroke semi final of the FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. | |
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Another training camp with Olympic champion Lilly King is in Dolphins team leader Jessica Hansen's sights as she prepares to finally reel in her great rival at the 2019 world swimming titles.
Breaststroke champ Hansen is putting in the hard yards this week on the Sunshine Coast, preparing for next month's national championships in Adelaide followed by June's world titles selections trials in Brisbane.
But Hansen - a member of the Australian team's new five-strong leadership group - also has one eye on a planned trip to the United States where she hopes to be reunited with world record holder King.
Victoria-based Hansen announced herself as a world force in 2018 after a two-week stint in Indiana with King's college squad.
Hansen toiled away trying to keep up with King in the pool before picking the champion's brain out of the water.
The results were staggering.
The 23-year-old pulled off a shock Pan Pacs 100m breaststroke silver medal behind King in August in Tokyo before claiming bronze in the same event at December's world short course titles in China.
It was a remarkable turnaround after Hansen appeared disillusioned following her last placing in the same event at April's Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
Hansen hopes another camp alongside the American will help her to take King's crown at the July world titles in South Korea.
"We are definitely in conversation with Lilly and her coach. We just need to get it approved but we are looking at doing it again before the June trials," Hansen told AAP.
"That camp was a turning point for me. It gave me a new perspective on swimming and the way to go about things.
"I made improvements in a lot of areas of my swimming which I have built on so that is exciting."
Hansen admitted lining up against King was still daunting but she would not show any sign of nerves if given the chance to topple her rival in South Korea.
"When she races, she has a very fierce racing mentality and that can still be quite daunting because it is such a contrast to the person that I have grown to know," Hansen said.
"But it (US camp) proved to me that if I stick to what I am doing, I will get the outcome (at world titles)."
Hansen's resurgence has also earned an invitation to the lucrative International Swimming League (ISL), joining fellow Australians Kyle Chalmers, the Campbell sisters and Emma McKeon on the star-studded London team.
The ISL - bankrolled by billionaire Konstantin Grigorishin - will run over six legs from October to December featuring eight teams based in Europe or the United States.
