Eight months have passed since she started hard training again.
The European Championships 50-meter butterfly was only her second competition at the distance since her comeback.
No one could beat her despite that.
The margin of victory over second-place Roos Vanotterdijk was just under seven hundredths.
Sjöström matched her best time of the year with 25.05 and Sara Junevik was third in 25.51.
Sjöström as Michael Jordan
Coach Antonio Lutula compares Sarah Sjöström to basketball legend Michael Jordan:
Sarah is a bit like Michael Jordan. If it's tight, you know she'll fight and give it her all to get her hand on the wall first. She has a great killer instinct.
Sjöström describes the work that has led to her successful comeback.
I am very focused on the process. It's not so much about winning a gold medal. I think it's really fun to work on different details and pieces that I'm trying to improve. This is a bonus, but of course it's great fun, she says, referring to the gold medal around her neck.
Tangent legends
It is the 18th European Championship gold medal of her career, which means she ties German legend Franziska van Almsick as the woman with the most European Championship titles in history.
Sjöström was already the swimmer with the most European Championship medals, and now she has 29.
She has won a total of 97 championship medals in an incredible career that began with European Championship gold in the 100-meter butterfly 18 years ago. At the time, Sjöström was 14 years old.
She pays tribute to her coach:
He's the one who makes it possible. He's extremely professional, skilled and knowledgeable. That's what it takes to stay at this level and stay healthy.
I'm not as strong and fast as I was before, I'm still a long way from that, but he's very good at working with what I have physically, says Sjöström.
Sarah Sjöström has returned to the Olympic gold city of Paris - where she won double gold two years ago - with her family, little Adrian, almost 1 year old, and her husband Johan.
They get to celebrate the "mom's gold" with Sarah Sjöström, who is not finished in Paris, however.
The 50-meter freestyle awaits, starting on Friday - an event where Sjöström is also the gold favourite and which she has focused on most in her comeback.
- Sarah Sjöström, Sweden, 18 gold, 7 silver, 4 bronze.
Franziska van Almsick, Germany, 18, 3, 0.
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Katinka Hosszu, Hungary, 15, 6, 4.
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Heike Friedrich, East Germany, 11, 2, 0.
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Therese Alshammar, Sweden, 10, 7, 4.
Source: Swimmingstats.
Gold (18): 100 meter butterfly (2008, 10, 16, 18), 50 meter butterfly (2012, 14, 16, 18, 22, 26), 100 meter freestyle (2012, 14, 16, 18), 50 meter freestyle (2018, 22), 4x100 meter freestyle (2014), 4x100 meter medley (2022).
Silver (7): 50-meter freestyle (2014), 100-meter butterfly (2014), 4x100-meter medley (2010 and 14), 4x100-meter freestyle (2012, 22), 4x200-meter freestyle (2014).
Bronze (4): 4x100 meter freestyle (2008, 10, 16), 4x100 meter freestyle mixed (2022).
