Australian Short Course Championships: Unstoppable Kaylee McKeown Preparing To Set Record Straight
It has been a spectacular eight years since Kaylee McKeown first made an appearance on the international swimming scene as a 15-year-old from Queensland on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
The kid sister of 2014 Commonwealth Games breaststroke gold medallist and Rio Olympian Taylor McKeown and telling anyone who listened at the time that she was “a backstroker” to stop any confusion.
It was the 2016 Junior Pan Pacs where the youngster from the Sunshine Coast won her first gold medal in the 200m backstroke – adding bronze to fellow Australian Minna Atherton in the 100m.
FOCUSED: Kaylee McKeown of Australia prepares to compete in the swimming 100m Backstroke Women Semi-finals with team mate Iona Anderson during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), July 29, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
Of the 17 backstroke finals that have followed internationally since, McKeown has unleashed a dominance at the highest levels rarely seen by an Australian female swimmer and as she prepares for her second World Short Course Championships in Budapest in December – the backstroking world remains her oyster.
Of those 17 individual backstroke finals from the Youth Olympics to the Commonwealth Games, World Short Course, World Long Course and the Olympics, there have been 13 gold, two silver and two bronze medals added to her collection.
In fact the last time McKeown was beaten in an Olympic distance backstroke event was in the 200m backstroke final at the 2019 World Long Course Championships in Gwangju when her great rival Regan Smith burst onto the scene.
The pair have staged some ding-dong battles ever since – pushing each other every stroke of every race over a tantalising last five years.
McKeown remaining unbeaten over those Olympic distance 100 and 200m events at her last five majors from the 2020 Toyko Olympics, 2022 Commonwealth Games, 2022 World Short Course, the 2023 World Long Course and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
McKeown became the first female swimmer to successfully defend the 100m and 200m backstroke titles in Olympic history, completing her Paris campaign with a total of five medals -two gold (100m and 200m backstroke), one silver (4x100m women’s medley relay) and two bronze (4x100m mixed medley relay and the 200 IM). Kaylee now has a total of nine Olympic medals – five gold, one silver and three bronze medals.
McKeown has already secured automatic selection for both backstrokes and the 200IM under the Swimming Australia criteria as an individual medallist in Paris – but can add the 50 backstroke and 100IM if she so desires.
She is preparing for the 2024 Australian Short Course Championships, beginning in Adelaide today where she will start her four-day campaign in the 100m backstroke and will contest the 200m backstroke and the 100 IM as she starts her campaign to end a spectacular 2024 at those World Short Course Championships in Budapest in December.
And she will return to SC racing as a five-time medallist from Melbourne in 2022 – plotting another campaign to again defend the 100-200m backstroke double.
PARIS PODIUM: Kaylee McKeown of Australia, gold, and US pair Regan Smith silver (L) and Katharine Berkoff, bronze show medals after the 100m backstroke at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), July 30, 2024.
And of the very few backstroke world records that don’t have the name K McKeown alongside it – it’s the 100m short course world mark which has been owned by her former great Australian rival, Atherton at 54.89 – and set back in 2019.
In fact on the Australian all-time rankings, she sits third behind Atherton and another great Australian backstroker in Emily Seebohm (55.31) to Kaylee’s 55.49 – which sits at 13th all-time on the world list.
You get the feeling, whether it’s tonight or in Budapest in three months’ time that Kaylee McKeown might just be getting ready to set that record straight.
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