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At the Sydney Olympics, swimmer Susie O'Neill won gold in an event she didn't take that seriously, but silver in the event she did.

A panicked Susie O'Neill was in tears.

Hours before the women's 200m freestyle final at the Sydney Olympics, she didn't want to swim the race.

Distraught, she phoned her husband Cliff Fairley.

"It was pretty nerve wracking," O'Neill told AAP.

"And I rang Cliff and I was crying, going 'I don't want to go out'."

Cliff, an eye doctor, changed her focus.

"My whole life, I catastrophise things a lot quite quickly," O'Neill said.

"And he was really good at putting everything into perspective.

"He's a doctor. And if he makes a mistake, someone is going to go blind.

"He looks at swimmers and goes 'come on, if you make a mistake no-one is going to die or go blind'."

O'Neill had qualified fastest for the September 19 final.

Which surprised her, given she'd never taken the freestyle that seriously - she was Madame Butterfly, concentrating on her pet event, the 200m 'fly.

"I had done the 200 free every year but in my mind I never really believed I could be that good at it," O'Neill said.

"Australia had a really good depth in that event so we all thought we would have a really good chance in the 4x200 freestyle relay.

"My main motivation of training really hard for the 200 free was for the relay.

"So when I qualified fastest, it was a bit of a shock. Then I looked around at the competition and thought 'I probably should win this race', which made me a bit more nervous."

Win, she did. Celebrate, she didn't.

O'Neill virtually jumped back into the pool for her semi-final in the 200m butterfly - she was the world record holder and unbeaten for six years in the event.

But the Australian finished second in the September 20 butterfly final, a race O'Neill didn't watch until 19 years later - when she did, she broke down in tears.

"It used to burn me up a lot," O'Neill said.

"I never really addressed it ... but watching it was something that really cleansed me."