This weekend, Sjöström is swimming the classic Settecolli in Rome, her second competition after her successful comeback in April at home in Stockholm.
Then she only swam the 50-meter freestyle - now she will also swim the 50-meter butterfly for the first time in two years.
The competition in Rome will be her rehearsal for the European Championships in August.
Sjöström set a world record in the 50-meter freestyle in 2017 and improved it three years ago. But after almost nine years as the record holder at the distance, American star Katie Douglass broke it with a time of 23.59 over the midsummer weekend - improving Sjöström's record by two hundredths of a second.
It was a real smash. She broke her personal best by three tenths. I'm proud to have held that record no matter what happens. Just like for Katie, 50-meter freestyle is a distance where I didn't think I could break a world record. I've swum 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter freestyle and things like that in the past, says the Södertörn swimmer.
“Still believe”
Do you feel you can take it back?
Right now I'm just happy that my body is holding up and that I can continue, but I still believe that I can swim very fast, says Sjöström, whose goal is to make her sixth Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
She surprised everyone, including herself, when she swam the 50-meter freestyle in 24.36 in her comeback in April - after a 20-month hiatus. She hopes to improve on that time in Rome, but it will also be interesting to see what she can do in the 50-meter butterfly.
It was two years ago, in Rome, that she swam the distance against international opposition.
"I've done a competitive race in training and it went pretty well. I did just under 26 seconds in training, so around 25.5 is a reasonable level," says Sjöström, whose world record from 2014 is 24.43.
Tougher than at the European Championships
She also faces top competition from American Gretchen Walsh, who swam 24.66 last year.
It will be nice to have an individual competition and it will be tougher competition than at the European Championships, says Sjöström, who is making a championship comeback at the European Championships in August in Paris - the city where she won double Olympic gold in 2024.
She is bringing her family, husband Johan de Jong Skierus, and son Adrian, 10-month-old, to a heatwave-stricken Rome. The forecast says 35-37 degrees Celsius during the three days of competition, with the butterfly on Friday and the freestyle on Sunday.
"So there probably won't be much sightseeing," she notes with a laugh.
