Siobhan-Marie O’Connor hopes to take down home favourite Katinka Hosszu at World Swimming Championships

Siobhan-Marie O’Connor has enjoyed the feeling of being roared on by a home crowd at London 2012.

But in Budapest this weekend she has dreams of being the party pooper and taking down home favourite and world champion Katinka Hosszu in her title defence.

O’Connor has been closing on Hosszu, finishing way behind her at the last world champs in 2015 but only 0.3 seconds off her pace at Rio 2016 as the pair took silver and gold.

Now, in Budapest, O’Connor wants to finish the job she has been working towards for five years since debuting at London 2012.

"It's definitely a challenge I'm looking forward to," she said.

"It will be an incredible atmosphere being in Budapest, swimming 200 medley - Katinka's event.

"I'll keep aiming to try to catch her, eventually. I got pretty close last year.

"But I can only concentrate on what I can do. If I can do my best, keep getting closer, hopefully one day I'll get one over her."

Hosszu is known as the Iron Lady, and with good reason.

The versatile 28 year-old is the first swimmer to hold world records in all five individual medley events at the same time, records she is still in possession of and looking to improve on in front of an adoring crowd at the Danube Arena.

She came away from Rio with three gold medals and an world record in the 400m individual medley, whereas O’Connor came home from Brazil and took several months off.

She returned to the water in December, but began full training only at the turn of the year.

"It was so weird,” O’Connor added, “I remember feeling like I couldn't swim any more at all.

"You definitely forget how hard a week of training is. I'd been doing weeks back to back for the past four years and you just get used to how tired your body feels and how to push yourself.

"When I took five months off, my body completely changed. To try to put a week together to begin with was so hard."

From those jelly legs to taking on the Iron Lady, O’Connor is behind enemy lines and looking to make a splash.