Open water swimmer Tayla Martin's alopecia may be her superpower at soupy Singapore World Championships

As soon as Tayla Martin dives into the water at the World Championships on Friday, there's one mission to accomplish: unleash the superpower.

Swimming rules say you have to wear a cap to start a race, but Martin plans to expose her head within the first couple of strokes.

"As my arm's coming over my head, I just like flick it off from the back to the front, making sure that my goggles don't come off in the process," she said.

"And just keep swimming."

The water temperature off Sentosa Island in Singapore for Martin's women's 5km Open Water final will be a bath-like 30 degrees.

Martin believes ripping the cap off will allow her to dissipate more heat through her head into the soupy waters off Singapore than her competitors.

You see, she's the bald one.

"I think it's a little superpower of mine," she said.

Martin has lived with alopecia — an autoimmune disease which causes the body's immune system to attack her hair follicles — since she was 10 months old.

Her mother lives with the condition as well.

"I've had alopecia pretty much my whole life, I haven't known any different," she said.

It wasn't always the case — especially during the awkward teenage years when self-consciousness is at its most extreme and body image is everything.

"Yes, it was definitely a struggle," she said.

"Self-image, body image has always been a big part of me.

"As I've gotten older it has gotten better, but yes, definitely as a teenager I struggled trying to like fit in.

"I would refer to princesses and princesses all have hair.

"And then like you see everyone in school and you're just like the only one with no hair and it's just like 'why am I different?'

"But I've come to learn that difference isn't always a bad thing.

She said meeting her partner, Phoenix, had helped her come to that realisation.

"I think even like after high school, I didn't think that anyone would love me," she said.

"Since then, I'm with my partner for four-and-a-half-years now and he just loves me and accepts me.

"I think that's even helped me with my confidence and loving me like loving myself and accepting myself for who I am and just everything about me."

It's a journey that has seen her go from battling away as just one of many talented young swimmers, sticking with the sport through her 20's without reaching any great heights, to a first-time Australian representative at 26 — an age when many swimmers are thinking about retirement.

Her coach, Chris Nesbitt, thinks the challenges Martin faced as a child may have developed the resilience to develop as a world-class open water swimmer and a late bloomer.

"She's had more challenges than the vast majority of people," he told ABC Sport.

"She probably would never have seen herself a few years ago as an Australian Dolphin.

"Now this has landed she's developing confidence with that, like I'll tell her: 'You deserve to be here'."

The journey started when Martin was a 13-year-old pool swimmer before her then-coach encouraged her to try open water swimming.

"I did not like it. I was crying the whole way," she said.

But as it turns out, she was really good at it.

"I ended up making my first national time, went to nationals, and that was a really big moment of my life back then," she said.

Except, it didn't eventuate the way she planned.

While she was an exceptionally good swimmer, she didn't develop in the same way as her peers — the likes of Paris 10k silver medallist, Moesha Johnson and Chelsea Gubecka — who won a silver and bronze medals at the 2023 World Championships, to go with her six national 10k golds.

Martin said it wasn't until she teamed up with Chris Nesbit at the Carlile Club in Sydney that the results of her hard work started to pay off.

"Chris Nesbit has been the best thing that's ever happened to me, I think," she said.

"I've just put all my trust and all my belief in him."

Asked to describe Martin, Nesbit said she was "a very caring person".

"She's very considerate, gets on with most people," he said.

But above all he singles out her strength of mind.

"To swim those distances — 10k and maybe further — you've got to have a determination, you've got to have a resilience, which is very, very different to your average pool swimmer," he said.

"Because the physical environment is so much different — especially if you're swimming in the ocean.

"You've got to be able to navigate, you've got people on top of you, you've got people punching you and kicking you — all very legal, but you can't respond to that."

Those in the know say Martin has great qualities for open water swimming and navigating the waves and chop: She reads the currents and tides well to pick her way through a race.

"You don't have your own black line to follow," Martin said.

"So, for us it's about sighting, actually lifting your head out of the water to see where you're going and doing that quite frequently so you don't get off track too much."

Then there's her physique. Martin is just 165 centimetres tall and very slight but has a solid VO2 max which gives her a good power-to-weight ratio — an essential component to distance swimming.

It's still a work in progress, but it all came together for Martin at the Open Water Swimming World Cup, held in Egypt in February.

She came 15th in the 10k event behind her Australian teammates, Johnson, who won and Gubecka in third but, importantly, ahead of other Australian distance swimmers including Tokyo Olympian, Maddy Gough.

Finally becoming an Australian Dolphin after so many years of trying was an extraordinary moment for Martin.

"It was so surreal — it was a very pinch me moment," she said.

"You train so hard for so long, you just go through the same patterns and routine day in, day out.

"I was achieving little bits and pieces, but nothing as significant as a World Championships, so when it actually came to that specific moment, I was just like in awe.

"I didn't know what to do, what to say, how to react."

Context is everything. For a swimmer to make a first national team at 26 is almost unprecedented.

"Especially for endurance swimming and distance swimming, it normally comes a lot earlier than that, so she certainly bucks the trend," Nesbit said.

He cited Gubecka, who was making national teams in her mid-teens and has now been a member of the Dolphins for a decade.

"The best distance swimmer in the world ever, Katie Ledecky, she was Olympic 1,500m champion at 15 and she's won it ever since," he said.

In Singapore, Martin will swim in the Women's 5km and the 3km knockout event, where competitors will swim 1,500m, then 1,000m before a final 500m dash featuring the top ten swimmers to crown the winner.

Martin has never swum a 5km internationally, but her 15th place in the Egypt 10km gives her a glimmer of hope that she may be a sneaky chance.

"Yeah. I'm like this little underdog that comes through," she said.

Not that she's placing any pressure on herself.

"I don't like to put expectations on myself only because whenever I do, I don't perform as best as what I expect," she said.

"And when I do that, I actually perform better than stressing about it.

"So, I'm just going in with an open mind and whatever result I get, I'll be happy."

Her coach is on the same page.

"I just want to her to come out having given everything she's got," Nesbit said.

"She just needs to be competitive and come through to the level she's capable of."

To do that she'll have to navigate the waters off Singapore which Nesbit described as "bloody hot".

That's where she can unleash her "little superpower" — her beautifully bald head.

"I think it's an advantage," she said.

"I obviously have that exposure of my head to release the heat a bit more.

"I have been doing heat training as well to prepare for this event, including saunas, wetsuit swims, just to keep my body temperature high to adapt to what will be coming in Singapore."

Martin knows that it's her teammates who will be the ones favoured for the podium, but she's OK with that.

"I don't know what it's gonna be like, but I know it's gonna be very full on, very big days, but very exciting days," she said.

"And we have such a good Australian team on this open water team and I'm just excited to see everyone compete and do their best and see what results Australia can do."

Now it's about putting her head down, ripping off her swimming cap and enjoying the moment after half-a-lifetime of hard work.