As Lewis Clareburt powered home to win a historic Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham on Sunday morning, his coach Gary Hollywood was both in the moment and thinking of elsewhere.
Hollywood, who has been with Clareburt since the newly-crowned Commonwealth Games champion was 16, was full of of emotion after watching the 23-year-old win the 400m individual medley - and for good reason.
"My dad's not well in Ireland so I've told him to hang on because I'm coming home," Hollywood told 1News with Clareburt's gold medal around his neck.
"I'm going to ask Lewis if I can take this [medal] back to Ireland and put it in my dad's hands because it could be the last time I get to see him... it means a lot."
Hollywood told 1News his parents played just as much a role in Sunday's triumph as he did and his father was on his mind for "the whole race".
"Mum and dad did the best they could," he said.
"I've worked hard to make them proud. When I first started coaching after I did my degree, my dad said, 'I didn't send you to university to be a swimming teacher'.
"He might change his attitude."
Clareburt could be faster than Phelps - coach
While Sunday's medal is a special moment in Clareburt's career, Hollywood believes there's still plenty to come for the Kiwi swimmer both in medals and records going forward.
Having worked on his breaststroke - the discipline critics saw as his weakest - to a point where he made gains on opposition on Sunday in the stroke, Hollywood said there was still plenty of room for improvement; seven seconds worth, to be precise following his Commonwealth Games record of 4:08.70 in the final.
The current world record belongs to American great Michael Phelps at 4:03.84 which he set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but Hollywood said their current analytics have Clareburt capable of doing a 4:01.00 at his peak.
"Ultimately, he's capable of doing that and I fully believe that," he said.
Even if he doesn't though, Hollywood said his swimmer was still something special.
"I said to him when he was 16 that if we're going to do this, lets train for the world record and lets train for an Olympic gold medal - if you don't achieve that, you're going to achieve great things along the way," he said.
"A great thing happened along the way tonight."
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