A couple of times every four years, Australians become diehard swimming fans – arguably the one international sport in which we can truly take on the world and win.

It happened at last year's Olympic Games where the likes of Emma McKeon, Ariarne Titmus, Kaylee McKeown and Zac Stubblety-Cook scooped the Tokyo pool.

For a little over a week, our swimmers – particularly the women – blitzed the field, bringing home an extraordinary haul of medals, gladdening the hearts of Australians worn down by the COVID lockdowns.

Just one year later, the Birmingham Commonwealth Games are looming, and on Wednesday in Adelaide the Australian Swimming Championships begin, doubling as trials for the Games in July and World Championships in Budapest one month earlier.

While we'll see the return of most of our Tokyo superstars, all eyes will be on Shayna Jack, who's aiming to make her first Australian team since the end of her two-year doping ban.

It starts on Wednesday night with Jack swimming in the 100m freestyle events in great form – she has the fastest time in the world this year over 100m.

Jack is one of the young women who'll have the chance to shine at these trials – it's the first time in more than a decade that a major Australian swimming meet won't feature either McKeon or Cate and Bronte Campbell.

Both of the Campbell sisters are taking a year off.

And McKeon, just a year after becoming Australia's most successful Olympian, is skipping the trials and the World Championships, but she does plan to compete at the Commonwealth Games

She has automatic entry into the Games courtesy of her medals at the Olympics.

Cate Campbell won the Australian 100m freestyle title seven times before she was finally toppled by McKeon last year.

So the door is open tonight for the likes of Jack as well as Mollie O'Callaghan, Madison Wilson and Meg Harrison, who all won relay gold medals in the 4 x 100m freestyle relay with the Campbell sisters and McKeon, to swim without the dominant women of the past decade next to them.