Kaylee McKeown Ponders Steps Towards 200IM Assault As Olympic And Paralympic Stars Line Up For NSW Championships
Australia’s premier Olympic swim coach Michael Bohl has given an insight into a “non-stop” racing schedule and the decisions facing his triple Olympic golden girl Kaylee McKeown (Griffith University, QLD) on the road to Paris 2024.
McKeown will join fellow Tokyo stars Ariarne Titmus (St Peters Western, QLD) and Emma McKeon (Griffith University, QLD) and Rio golden boys Kyle Chalmers (Marion, SA) and Mack Horton (Griffith University, QLD) in the strongest array of talent seen in five years at this week’s three-day 2023 NSW State Open Swimming Championships at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre (SOPAC) – starting Friday.
For McKeown it comes just two weeks after her stunning performances at the Victorian State Championships where she dominated not only in her specialist 100m, backstroke but also in the 100m breaststroke and 100m freestyle as she plots her racing program and ponders an assault on the 200 individual medley.
MCKEOWN’S MASTERCLASS AT VICTORIAN STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Olympic, World LC and SC and Commonwealth champion over 200m backstroke has entered five events in Sydney – the 50, 100 and 200m backstroke, the 100m butterfly as well as the 200IM, an event that is quickly becoming a top-heavy target.
“The medley is an option for her – not the 400m IM but certainly the 200IM – there will be double ups in both the World Championships and Olympics and we’re not going to commit and say she’s definitely doing the medley – but she is certainly doing the work for the medley plus the backstrokes,” said Bohl.
WALKIN’ ON WATER: Kaylee McKeown caught just at the right moment in a Cairns training camp. Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr (Swimming Australia).
“It’s good for her not just concentrating on the backstrokes which creates pressure for her (swimming that one stroke) so it’s just nice swimming a couple of freestyle races, the breaststrokes, the medley and she will just mix it up a bit over these next three or four meets, starting with the NSW Championships this weekend, then the Australian Championships on the Gold Coast in April and then the Sydney Open (Uni Nationals) in May before the Trials (in Melbourne) in June.
“We’ll just keeping changing up her events over the next 15 or 16 weeks, just try and cover all the bases for the backstrokes and medley and make some decisions closer to the time.
“There is no need to make any decisions at this point…it’s about getting the work in to cover the medley but whether she does it or not we’ll just have to wait and see.
“The butterfly is where she has to do more work; she couldn’t get that work done in the ‘fly because of her shoulder (problems) where as she was able to get the back, the breast and the free in – the shoulder ‘touch wood’ is getting a little bit better and more manageable where she is starting to gradually fit a little bit more fly (in to her training).
“But the medley is certainly an event she could be very, very competitive in – and there are some good people going around – the US girls are swimming very, very well at the moment..
“And Kaylee is behind them on best times…but there’s still 18 months to go to Paris so we’ll just have see what her improvement rates are like – but looking at the likes of Alex Walsh, she’s just so good at all four strokes, and will be very, very hard to be competitive with…so that’s the challenge that Kaylee is facing.
“If she does decide to do it there is certainly no expectation on her to win it she would be just trying to be as competitive as she can and try and bridge the gap between the two girls….
“Alex won the World Championships last year by over a second so she’s trying to bridge that gap if she does compete in the World’s in that 200 medley and see how close she can get and that’s another piece of information we will use to see if she does it at the Olympics.
“We’ll have to see what’s happening in those events in world swimming and base the decisions on how the training goes over the next 18 months and see what happens at the world championships and we’ll see how we go from there.
“The difficult thing is and why she had to do the 200IM last year and drop the 100m backstroke – in Australia you can swim 2:14, 2:15 or 2:16 and still make the Trials final…Kaylee has never had to go to 2:10, 20: 9, 2:08 – so until you experience that and to see if you can handle that it’s all theoretical stuff – if she wanted to pursue the medley she had to get the experience at doing it internationally and that was the window to see how she went and she managed to get herself on the podium.
“There was not a guarantee of that, but she got herself into the silver position – so now it’s seeing what happens over the next 18 months and to see how it develops now that she’s got a good result in that 200 medley and that’s the first international event she’s had in medley and she got a little bit of confidence from that so she’s got a few things to work on and hopefully she can just keep improving.”
MEDLEY SPLASH: Summer McIntosh set a new 200Im World Junior Record in Fort Lauderdale. Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Another shaker and mover is Canadian wondergirl Summer McIntosh who last week continued her meteoric rise up the rankings, clocking 2;08.08 to set a new Junior World Record of 2:08.08 in Fort Lauderdale – faster than McKeown’s 2:08.57 in Budapest last year.
The heats and finals format at the NSW Championships will be swum over three days (March 10-12) with 21 Tokyo Olympians, 14 Paralympians and a total of 47 members of last year’s victorious Birmingham Commonwealth Games swim team arriving in to Sydney Olympic Park.
It will be another major hit out in the countdown to the World Championship Trials in Melbourne from June 13-18 and the Australian Age and Open Championships in April on the Gold Coast.
“This is the best depth of talent we’ve seen at a NSW Open Championships in five years,” said Swimming NSW Coaching Director Jon Shaw.
“Everywhere you look there’s a superstar – Olympians and Paralympians in almost every event.
“Our meet in 2019 was good but I’d even say it’s the best we’ve seen since 2018.
“I know we went through COVID in 2019 and 2020 but looking at the depth of swimmers from around Australia and throughout NSW, is amazing – it’s going to be tough just to make finals.”
Joining the five individual Olympic gold medallists will be reigning World Champions Mollie O’Callaghan and Elijah Winnington and Commonwealth Games and World’s gold medallist Shayna Jack, who like Titmus represents the powerful St Peters Western club in Queensland.
The who’s who list continues with triple Olympian Cam McEvoy (Sommerville House, QLD), swimming’s pop star Cody Simpson, four-time World Short Course champion Lani Pallister (Griffith University), Tokyo relay gold medallists Madi Wilson and Meg Harris (Marion, SA) along with Paralympic gold medallists Lakeisha Patterson, Brenden Hall (USC Spaartans, QLD) and Benjamin Hance (St Andrews, QLD) and world record holder and World and Commonwealth champion, Sydney’s own Tim Hodge (ACU Blacktown, NSW).
HODGE TRIUMPHANT IN WORLD PARA SWIM SERIES
The opening day’s action will feature the men’s 100m freestyle which will live up to it’s blue ribband tag with Aussie sprint king Chalmers lining up against British record holder Lewis Burras (Peel Aquatic, WA) who trains under former British world record holder Zoe Baker in Mandurah.
They’ll be joined by a flurry of talent from Aussie foursome Flynn Southam (Bond, QLD), Will Yang (SOPAC, NSW), Jack Cartwright (St Peters Western, QLD), Olympic relay medallist Matt Temple (Marion, SA) along with Kai Taylor (St Peters Western) and triple Olympian Cam McEvoy to chart buster Cody Simpson ranked 10th.
The first event will see Winnington and Horton (Griffith University) on top of psyche sheets in the men’s 400m freestyle alongside youngsters Joshua Staples (St Peters Western) and Matthew Galea (SOPAC) as well as Australian Surf Team world champion James Koch (Sydney University).
Followed by the women’s 50m butterfly which will see Australia’s premier Olympic and Commonwealth Games swimmer Emma McKeon (Griffith University, QLD) in the water alongside Commonwealth Games team mate Alexandria Perkins (USC Spartans, QLD) and Marion SA pair Meg Harris and Ellysia Oldsen and Carlile 16-year-old Olivia Wunsch.
It will be the first of five events for McKeon who will also line up in the 100 and 200m butterfly and the 50 and 100m freestyle (also on day one) in her first competition since her triumphant World Short Course campaign in Melbourne late last year.
The women’s100m freestyle will see McKeon up against Shayna Jack, Meg Harris, Madi Wilson, Ariarne Titmus and dual Olympian Brianna Throssell (St Peters Western, QLD), as well s 16-year-olds Milla Jensen (Bond, QLD) and Olivia Wunsch (Carlile, NSW).
One notable absentee is Mollie O’Callaghan who has chosen to swim the 200m backstroke on the opening day – where she will face off against world record holder and Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games champion Kaylee McKeown.
The finals session will also see Australia’s big gun distance girls, led by Olympic silver medallist Titmus up against her SPW club mate Kiah Melverton and World Short Course champion Pallister.
2023 NSW STATE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIPS
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SESSION TIMES: (Open for all media and filming):
Friday March 10 – Heats: 9am; Finals 6pm (Open for all media and filming);
Saturday, March 11 – Heats: 9am; Finals 6pm;
Sunday, March 12 – Heats: 9am; Finals 5:30pm.