Editorial content for the 2023 World Aquatics Championships is sponsored by FINIS, a longtime partner of Swimming World and leading innovator of suits, goggles and equipment. Kaylee McKeown, Qin Haiyang Chasing First Ever Worlds Stroke Triple In the final three night sessions of the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Qin Haiyang and Kaylee McKeown have a chance at history. Both are looking to be the first swimmer ever to win all three events in a non-freestyle stroke, since the 50s were added to World Championships in 2001. Qin has registered victories in the men’s 50 breaststroke and 100 breaststroke, the latter in an Asian record. Both victories have been decisive, by .30 in the 50 and more than a second in the 100. He is the second seed in Friday night’s final in the 200 breast, with top seed and world record holder Zac Stubblety-Cook standing in his way. McKeown has won the women’s 50 and 100 back. Her margins have been tighter, out-touching Regan Smith by .03 in the 50 and by .25 in the 100, the latter a competition record. The 200, though, is arguably the Australian’s best event. She won the world title in the event in each of the last two editions, and she took the Olympic title in Tokyo. She posted just the fifth-fastest time in Friday morning’s prelims, but there’s a long way to go ahead of Saturday night’s final. At stake is a historically unprecedented swim. Only four swimmers have ever won two gold medals in a non-freestyle stroke and medaled in the third race: That quartet and four more have ever medaled in all three distances in a stroke at the same Worlds. One name should be familiar from above: Freestyle is a different animal for its variety of distances. That’s where you dip into Katie Ledecky’s four-for-four in the 2015 Worlds or Grant Hackett’s 400-800-1500 in 2005. Still, only eight swimmers have won three individual world titles in the same stroke. Ledecky has done it four times, plus Hackett, Sun Yang in 2013, Ian Thorpe in 2001 and Hannah Stockbauer in 2003. Fourteen swimmers have done the IM double at a Worlds without a third one to swim, including Katinka Hosszu on four occasions, Leon Marchand this year and in 2022. Michael Phelps’ Worlds in 2007, when he won the 100/200 fly and both IMs, bears special mention. But Qin and McKeown could make history without caveats this week.
