Jones motivated by Soni

The seasoned Australian now has little call for imagination, with American golden girl Rebecca Soni an all-too-real threat in her campaign to regain her status as the world's best female breaststroker.

The battle between Jones and Soni in the 100m breaststroke is likely to be one of the highlights of the world championships, which start on Saturday in Shanghai.

Having swapped the pool for beauty school in a year-long sabbatical in 2009, Jones's 100 and 200 breaststroke titles were assumed by Soni at the swimsuit-tainted world championships in Rome and Jones has been in her wake since returning to competition last year.

The Australian, however, is relishing being the hunter rather than the hunted, having struggled for years with the pressure of home expectations when she ruled the roost.

"I'd rather be gunning for the title than defending it," 25-year-old Jones told Reuters in a telephone interview as she packed her bags for Shanghai.

"(As holder) everyone wants to beat you. I must admit it's much harder to have the target on your back than to be the one chasing. I'm much more comfortable being in the position I am."

Born in Katherine, a remote rural town in northern Australia, Jones was discovered by former coach Ken Wood at a Brisbane pool where her mother worked as a cleaner.

Wood had her imagine a giant crab was chasing her to boost her times and Jones later swapped the crab for the image of a Ferrari and herself behind the wheel as she powered down the lanes.

She burst onto the world scene as a 15-year-old at the 2000 Sydney Games, winning silver in the 100m breaststroke and 4x100m medley to become her country's youngest Olympic medallist.

Her achievements and telegenic looks brought crushing pressure along with instant stardom and she was savaged by Australian media after her failure to win individual gold at the 2004 Athens Games, accused of being graceless in defeat.

After admitting to depression and self-esteem issues, Jones split with Wood and embarked upon a four-year period of dominance under Swiss coach Stephan Widmer, capturing the 100 and 200 world titles in Montreal in 2005 and defending them successfully in Melbourne two years later.

She finally clinched individual Olympic gold at Beijing in 2008 and has now set her sights on London and becoming Australia's first swimmer to compete at four Games.

"I'm definitely not the oldest in the Australian team but maybe have been around the longest," said Jones, nicknamed 'Diesel'.

"But I would hate it if I was called 'Grandma' -- that would be horrible," she laughed.

Twenty-four year-old Soni pipped Jones to win the 100m breaststroke at the short-course world championships in Dubai in December and will dive into the Shanghai pool as favourite.

Jones said she would make her earn that tag but would not be furious with herself if she came up short, given her eyes were set firmly on the bigger prize in London.

"Of course I'm out there to win it and that's what I always train for, to be the best in the world, but there's nothing wrong with getting silver at this point. You get too complacent at this stage if you easily win the worlds.

"When you get silver it hurts more. It makes you go back to training and say: 'I've got to be better, I've got to be a better athlete, I've got to find ways to do things better.'"

Jones was happy to miss out on the controversy at the 2009 worldss in Rome where swimmers helped by synthetic suits smashed world records but have since sunk back into obscurity following the ban on suits last year.

Shanghai offers swimming a chance to restore some badly-needed credibility and Jones, who still rankles about the Rome results etched in the record books, is determined to make her mark in the new era.

"For an athlete it's quite hard to see these times in record books and knowing that you're not going to get anywhere near them because they are illegal," she said.

"I think there definitely should be an asterisk next to (their names). In my personal opinion it was blatant cheating.

"It was making athletes awesome when they really didn't have the skill or technique. I'm so glad I didn't have to swim ... It sounded like a horrid time."