Kathryn Mitchell has declared her intentions to stake a spot in her fourth Olympic Games, seven years after this column came to her defence for putting her name forward to become Australia's oldest female athlete contesting an IAAF world track-and-field championships.

The javelin thrower was then turning 35 years old.

A year later Mitchell threw 68.92 metres in a Commonwealth and Australian record to claim gold in the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Mitchell now feels she has one more Olympics left in her.

Age in sport is a funny thing.

Young guns tend to be highly lauded but experience and the hard-earned nous to work smarter in the game might have respects but almost always comes tinged with opinions for when an athlete should pull up stumps.

Go out on top or bow out a sad reflection on that flashy promise of youth.

Sport is far more nuanced than this.

Mitchell, who is set to turn 42 years old less than a fortnight before the Paris Olympics, changed up her game deep into her career.

She has been public about her change in mindset to "release the brakes" and not get bogged down in the mental torment that can creep into an athlete's game.

At the time Mitchell, under new coach Uwe Hohn, gave herself qualifying for the the 2012 London Olympics as a cross roads for whether to continue in athletics.

That was her first Olympic taste with Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021 to follow.

If you talk about eras, given Taylor Swift's infiltration in all things Australian culture the past month, Mitchell has continued to reinvent herself.

READ MORE: Flying after the darkness - Kathryn Mitchell speaks out on biggest battle

Her mum died not long after the Tokyo Games and Mitchell said for the next two years "everything was falling in a heap".

Motivation dwindled. Age started to again takes its toll.

After a late decision to contest the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Mitchell threw 62.20m on her opening throw in the preliminary round.

Her body failed her in the final.

Mitchell's left side was injured, largely from a lack of training in the scramble to make the team.

But the experience reignited confidence - she could still compete at the highest levels.

Ballarat Olympic rower Anthony Edwards has long called this "Five-Ring Fever".

Somehow, Edwards could keep finding something in his body to get back on the water and qualify for an Olympics.

In London 2012, Edwards' fifth Olympics, his Australian lightweight four finished fourth and less than 1.25 seconds from the elusive gold he had been chasing. Edwards was 39 years old.

Mitchell smiled when the Five-Ring Fever theory was put to her but agreed the lure was real: four years seems like a long time, but then it was three and by two the strategies started to kick in.

You only need to look to Matildas' veteran Michelle Heyman who boosted four first-half goals for Australia in an Olympics qualifier against Uzbekistan at the Docklands on February 28.

The qualifiers were Heyman's first international matches in six years and she was replacing the likes of Kyah Simon and injured star Sam Kerr.

Heyman, aged 35, looks Paris-ready.

Mitchell said trophies and medals do not mean the same anymore. It is about what her body and mind can do, given this Olympic road has been harder than ever and, from the time she was a young girl, the Olympics have been her absolute pinnacle.

"Trophies and achievements...they're not the only thing in life and they're definitely not the most important thing in life," Mitchell said.

"At the end of the day, without those supporting us these mean nothing and I've definitely learned that the past few years.

"I feel like I'm in a good position now."

Olympics do not allow for self-indulgence.

Mitchell knows exactly what it takes to compete at the top. This is experience talking.

And when actions speak louder than words, she has already thrown a 62.12m to win the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on February 15.

Elder in the game or not, this demands respect.