Nottingham’s Hadden Sports Complex played host to the swimming events for the Cerebral Palsy World Games, a competition where Staines won a remarkable seven gold and one silver medal.

She was only beaten twice across her heavy program of eight heats and as many finals, and clocked a string of personal best times.

If she had wanted a way to catch the attention of national selectors, she certainly found it. Her performances will also give her a massive confidence boost heading into the Paralympic swim trials in Adelaide.

Going against the recommendation that she only contest three events, Staines embraced the challenge of a busy three days in the pool.

“My attitude was that if you’re going all this way around the other side of the world, you might as well make the most of it while you’re there and do as many events as you can,” she said before leaving Bathurst.

Staines was impressive in the 25- metre pool on the opening day of competition.

“Today I swam three races – 100 metres backstroke, 200 metres IM [individual medley] and 50 metres free. All gold medals, all PBs [personal bests],” Staines posted on her Facebook page. 

“Ten seconds in 200 metres IM, five seconds in the 100 back and one second in the 50 metres free. Words can’t really describe how I’m feeling right now.”

If Staines was excited about those three gold medals, then she was ecstatic as she added another pair to her tally on day two of the competition.

This time she contested the 50 metres butterfly – her pet event – and 400 metres freestyle.

“I swam a PB in the heats for the 50 metres fly. Then went through to the final for both 400 freestyle and 50 metres butterfly, swimming a PB in both the freestyle and again in the fly! Also winning gold in both events,” Staines said.

She clocked a time of 44.04 seconds in her butterfly heat and lowered her personal best time to 43.39 in her gold medal swim.

Staines was comfortable in winning her 400m freestyle heat over England’s Sophie Taylor with a six minutes, 59.93 seconds effort, but the Bathurst talent smashed that time in the decider.

Going out hard, Staines led Taylor by more than four seconds after 50m. Though her English rival managed to reduce the deficit, Staines went on to win by more than two seconds in a personal best time of 6:51.38.

Staines contested the 100m breaststroke and 100m freestyle on the final day of competition at Nottingham on Saturday.

She won her seventh gold medal of the Games in the freestyle, again touching out Taylor in both the heat and final.

Staines won her heat by over five- and-a-half seconds, but the final was a little closer as she clocked a 1:37.08 and Taylor touched in at 1:38.50.

The breaststroke saw Staines’ run of wins finally come to an end as England’s Grace Harvey beat her in both the heat and the final.

But grabbing silver with a 2:01.26 effort in the medal swim – where Harvey clocked a 1:55.70 – was still a mighty effort considering Staines’ huge program.