Jones caught the attention of Dawn Fraser, arguably Australia's greatest female swimmer, when she was 14. At 15, she claimed a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Her first individual gold medals on a major international stage came at Manchester 2002, and by the time she finished her last Commonwealth Games race in Delhi in 2010, Jones had amassed 10 gold medals.

She made Commonwealth Games history by becoming the first woman to win all three breaststroke golds at 50 metres, 100m and 200m in the Melbourne 2006 Games, and won the 100m and 200m at both Manchester and Delhi.

When she won the 100m in Melbourne to complete the sweep of the individual titles, she did it in 1min 05.09sec – beating her own world record, which she had set at the same pool in the trials.

Jones thanked the home fans for their support. When she turned she was nearly half a second slower than world-record pace but she made up the time.

"I am in absolute shock," she said. "I was dying a fair bit in every stroke I was pulling, and they were getting louder and louder - the crowd has a lot to do with it."

While she was setting world records and winning all these medals - three Olympic golds, seven World Championship titles and a host of other podium visits as well as her Commonwealth Games haul - Jones went through difficult times.

She spoke about it after writing her biography, Body Lengths, in 2015, when her revelations caused a stir.

Jones suffered with depression and said she had been close to suicide. "I didn't have enough balance in my life," she said.

She had given her whole life to swimming, had been the victim of body shaming when an Australian newspaper said she was "fat" during the London 2012 Olympic Games, and told how she had found herself sitting in a hotel bathroom in Spain in 2011 with a box of sleeping tablets, planning to take her own life. Her coach found her before she took any pills.

"Whenever I have to stand on the pool deck in my togs, listening to my body being discussed like it's an engine and not the arms, legs, thighs and stomach of a teenage girl, I am self-conscious and miserable," she wrote in Body Lengths.

"I wanted to go into full depth because I wanted people to realise that it can be really dark. I wanted people to feel like they weren't alone, that sports people can go through these things as well and can still be going through a really hard time."

Her sports psychologist became the most important person in her life and Jones, who retired after the London Olympics, campaigned for better awareness of mental health problems within sport, as well as more funding to help young people improve their mental wellbeing through sport.

She hosted Australian television coverage of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and has had a successful career in the media since her retirement from the pool.