Melbourne is staging the World Swimming Championships (25m) this week after stepping into the breach to replace Russian city Kazan as hosts.

Kazan was stripped of the hosting rights in March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before World Aquatics named Melbourne as the replacement two months later.

"There has been a power of work that has gone into this but what we know about Victoria and Melbourne is that this is not our first rodeo," McClements told insidethegames.

"We have an existing body of knowledge and facilities which means we can move quickly and that's what we have done here.

"It’s perfect for Victoria to have a major international event that gets the eyes of the world back on us.

"We could not be happier.

"Swimming is becoming increasingly sought after in various parts of the world so it has become a little bit more competitive, but we have always been interested and we know how well it worked in 2007 [with the World Aquatics Championships] so when the opportunity came up the world dealt us a friendly hand so we were ready to go."

Victoria endured one of the world's longest COVID-19 lockdowns that totalled 246 days before ending in October 2021.

McClements said the state gained about AUD32.8 billion (£18 billion/$22.2 billion/€21 billion) per year from the visitor economy before the coronavirus pandemic saw that plummet to AUD9 billion (£4.95 billion/$6.1 billion/€5.8 billion).

The Australian official believes Victoria has since witnessed an "incredible response" with its visitor economy climbing to AUD20.8 billion (£11.5 billion/€13.3 billion/$14 billion).

He reckons the Victorian Government's approach to obtaining major sporting competitions has played a key role in that increase.

As well as hosting the World Swimming Championships (25m), Melbourne has staged the Men's T20 World Cup matches and boxing fights this year.

Victoria was also awarded the rights to stage the 2026 Commonwealth Games in April after a successful exclusive dialogue period launched in February.

"We have been super aggressive over the past 12 month in trying to find the things that fit," said McClements.

"We will take a pause and see if this is the best way forward, but these 12 past month have shown that we are starting to see those numbers.

"Sport has been a part of it but we have also had the likes of Billy Joel perform and an exhibition by Alexander McQueen so across the board we have seen the opportunity to really pursue all sorts of things to get people moving again.

"In December 2021, we started the conversations with [Commonwealth Games Federation President] Dame Louise [Martin] and [chief executive] Katie Sadleir in London and we were able to move through the gears really quickly because it was a good fit for us.

"We feel really recharged.

"This year is about doing the hard graft, holding as many thing as we can, knowing that it will result in great relationships with sporting federations and great awareness around the world from people about Melbourne and Victoria."