Some 11 years have gone by since Joanna Maranhão, now in the world top 50 over 400m medley, started to suffer sexual abuse at the hands of her coach, the swimmer reveals in an interview with Gazeta Esportiva in Brazil today.

Now 20, Maranhão is at altitude camp in Font Romeu, France, alongside teammates Fabíola Molina, Diogo Yabe and Gabriel Mangabeira, training for a shot at Olympic selection this summer.

Her last Olympic outing was a sad one: she quit the sport on return home from Greece, not because she had not met her goals in the pool, she said, but because she could no longer cope with having to think daily about the abuse she had suffered.

'I was abused by my coach ... to be exact I was nine years old. The mind has an incredible ability and throughout all those years I had convinced myself that nothing had happened, that it was all in my imagination," said the swimmer. 'But like a strong wave hitting me 10 years later, I realised fully what I had suffered. It was a slow process. I had psychological and psychiatric treatment because I needed to clear all of this out."

She described that process as having 'lifted a weight' off her shoulders. 'The storm has passed. I had two options: live as a prisoner to this sadness or confront it. The second choice was the better one for me."