Australian beach volleyball player Taliqua Clancy sits up excitedly, a flicker of a plan flitting across her face and dancing behind her eyes.
The three-time Olympian is sitting beside the courts at the Sandstorm Beach Volleyball Club at Nathan, in Brisbane's south, the shadow of the Queensland Sports and Athletics Centre's skeletal eastern grandstand looming up on the hill to her left.
Her newest playing partner, 21-year-old Stefie Fejes, is sitting on her right.
For a moment, conversation has turned from volleyball and the success this fledgling partnership has enjoyed since they came together in May this year, to Fejes's side project, crocheting.
"It started in high school actually with one of my design projects," Fejes explains to ABC Sport.
"I made an eco-friendly bikini out of cotton. I'm really invested in sustainable fashion and, I guess, everything that goes with it.
"I'm really not a huge fan of fast fashion and how much waste we're producing in the world, so that's kind of where the love started.
"And then I was like, this is a great way to pass time: It's very efficient. It's productive. I can make some money. And I love doing it.
"I started doing it on the plane, do it on the bus. I would say it's like a form of meditation, for sure.
"Everyone probably knows, but I'm quite high functioning,
"I like to move around a lot, do a lot and not a lot stops, and this is like my time where I can actually just take a breath and I make myself sit down and still be productive, but I'm actually sitting down and resting."
Clancy chips in and tells Fejes to mention one of her main projects, the crocheted ball carrier.
"On my first international event away I started realising that we have to take our [volley]ball with us everywhere, especially if we don't have a big staff and coaching team with us, and the ball takes up so much space in your bag," Fejes says.
"So I was like, OK, I'm going to create a ball carrier that I can just clip onto the outside of my bag, and everyone was obsessed with it.
"I'm still making it four years later. And sales are going great.
"I think most of the Australian tour has one, which is actually really cool, and they're supporting my journey … It's really special actually, I'm like, 'I made that,' when I see one … it's very kind and I really appreciate that everyone's getting on board with it too. I think it's really cool to connect with the community like that."
There is something in this crafting contemplation that strikes a gleeful parallel with British diver Tom Daley, whose habit of knitting in the stands during the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo sent the five-time Olympic medal winner viral at those Games and the subsequent Paris Olympics.
It has sent Tokyo silver medallist Clancy's mind working into overdrive, too.
"You need to pick an athlete that you want to gift it to," Clancy says to Fejes.
"And you've got to find them in the village.
"Snoop Dogg! He always comes out to the event. Oh my God, make him something."
Fejes laughs and agrees to cook something up. She has time to plan what to make, at least.
As the pair speak to ABC Sport they are each, almost absent-mindedly, turning a gold medal around in their hands, spoils from the Asian Championships in Shangluo, China, earlier this month.
Indeed, on the table to Clancy's right sits the voluminous silver trophy, with a novelty-cheque-sized banner with "QUALIFIED" emblazoned across it — the ticket to the LA28 Olympic Games.
A change to the qualification process for the LA Olympics had meant Australia has already qualified a quota spot just under two years out from the Games.
Fellow Paris Olympians Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher also secured Australia a quota spot by winning the men's competition, edging out fellow countrymen Tom Hodges and Ben Hood in an epic final 21-17, 17-21, 15-12.
In Clancy's almost two-decade elite career, Olympic qualifying has never been completed this far out from a Games.
"They kind of changed the whole Olympic cycle," Clancy says.
"It was really last minute that we, and all the other countries, found out that if you win your continental champs you also secure a ticket to LA, so it was an odd one because you're kind of making a short plan within the really big, long-term plan of getting to the Games."
Offering crocheted gifts to US rappers isn't something that should preoccupy Fejes and Clancy's mind too much yet. Earning a quota spot does not mean that Australia will send this particular pairing to the Games; only that there is a spot there for an Australian team.
But despite only playing six tournaments together so far, the signs are looking promising that this team could make it all the way.
Prior to their Asian Championships victory — Clancy's sixth continental championship win — the pair came fifth at the World Volleyball Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Hamburg.
Their subsequent success in China came despite Fejes being so sick she was bedridden in the lead-up and Clancy breaking a toe. She also required treatment for a knee injury that was "a bit more severe than we anticipated" during the off-season, which limited their playing time.
Clancy noted that securing qualification so early was just "one part of the job" as far as their development as a pairing was concerned and that there was still a lot of work to do in order to improve their seeding for the Games and to work on the nuances of what they needed to do together on the court.
She has, of course, been in this position before.
For the past two Olympic cycles she has worked with Mariafe Artacho del Solar, a partnership that produced an Olympic silver medal, back-to-back Commonwealth Games silvers, world championship bronze and eight world tour titles.
But it is looking back to her first Games cycle where Clancy has found parallels with her new partner.
Bawden was already a two-time Olympian in two different disciplines at that stage. Now the tables have turned and Clancy is the one with the experience in the partnership.
"Actually it's so funny because it's kind of the complete flip," Clancy, who is now 34, says.
"I'm pretty sure me and Lou actually had pretty much the same age gap as well [Clancy was 24 during the Games and Bowden was 35 in Rio].
"So it is pretty funny. Me and Lou are very close, so I have asked a few questions. I was like, shit, OK, what do I do?
"But she's always been a great support. I still lean on her quite a lot."
As for Fejes, she's far from overawed from playing with a multiple global medallist.
"It's definitely not intimidating," she says.
"I've watched Taliqua's career basically my whole life and I always wanted to play with her, so it's pretty cool that this could finally happen.
"But I think the biggest thing I've learned is like coming into the space with T, the actions are 100 per cent the best. It doesn't matter how she's feeling, the consistency and the level of mastery is not something I've really experienced with the players that I've played with before.
"Maybe because of that experience, but also just the level of dedication T has shown over the past 17 years is just incredible.
"I think it was more inspiring for me than intimidating and like, yeah, this is where I want to be and I'm super excited to continue the journey."
That journey will have to include more trips from her home in Sydney's Northern Beaches to Brisbane, mostly for training, but also to deliver a crocheted masterclass to Clancy's nephews.
"Every time I'm with them and call them and anything, they always ask, 'Is Stefanie coming over?' 'Is she going to come crochet?'" Clancy says.
"So they're actually waiting."
Fejes seems OK with that.
"We're going to have a little crochet session together for sure. Absolutely," she says.
Perhaps they can workshop things to make for a certain US Olympic super fan while they're there, too.
