A deleted text message blew Elijah Winnington's cover.
The 26-year-old was awake all night vomiting with suspected food poisoning ahead of the Commonwealth Games 400m freestyle final.
At 2.30am he decided - and then undecided - to give coach Dean Boxall a heads up.
"I thought I don't want to make excuses, so I deleted it," Winnington said.
"But obviously you can see the deleted message so he messaged me in the morning ... I kind of didn't have a choice but to tell him."
When Boxall made Winnington come clean, he gave him the choice: "Do you want to pull the pin?"
Despite a lack of sleep, Winnington's mind was clear.
"I said to him that's giving up," Winnington said.
"I didn't want to give up, I wanted to fight - and I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't be getting a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games."
Fight he did, and Winnington finished second in an Australian trifecta.
He touched the wall 4.31secs behind gold medallist Sam Short (3:41.25) and just 0.01secs ahead of Ben Goedemans, who took bronze.
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"Today was just about fighting," Winnington said.
"(Boxall) said, 'This isn't about time, this is about showing how tough you are and showing that through adversity we can really put it together.'
"The last 50 was literally just everything I had."
It was a sense of deja vu for Winnington and Short, who reversed their positions after filling the podium in the same event with Mack Horton in Birmingham four years earlier.
"It just goes to show the rich history of Australian 400m swimming and it's super special," Winnington said.
