Paris Olympics: Historic Day For Cam McEvoy and Kaylee McKeown on Australian Swim Team Doused In Parisian Gold
Like the world’ fastest man on water, Cam McEvoy, Australia held its collective breath for 21.25 seconds in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A nation then catching its breath, before its “little fish” Kaylee McKeown made her own history-making splash with a fourth individual Olympic gold medal – over two Games – in the 200m backstroke, 37 minutes later.
BUNDLE OF JOY: Cameron Mcevoy of Australia celebrates after winning the gold medal in the swimming 50m Freestyle Men Final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), August 02, 2024. Photo: DeepBlueMedia.
Back-to-back golds for an Australian team basking on top of the swimming medal tally with seven gold and sending celebrations into overdrive in the Paris La Defense Arena (and the Irish pub down the road) and lightning up loungerooms and coffee machines back home.
The two Queenslanders added gold medals No. six and seven for a spectacular week (so far) and created two special pieces of history for this swimming mad country.
Self-made new-age sprinter, McEvoy won Australia’s first ever medal in that helter-skelter 50 freestyle final.
McEvoy out-touched the brave Brit, Ben Proud, by 0.05 (21.30) and French legend 33-year-old Florent Manaudou (21.56) won a remarkable fourth medal from his fourth Olympic final.
McEvoy said in his poolside interview on Channel 9 that his win was “Literally just pure joy…it’s amazing to win and that entire 21.25 seconds was bliss.
“The way my stroke moved through the water; I never thought I’d ever be able to experience that.
“The joy of the moment I just had and to get a gold medal with it….it’s unreal.”
Dissecting his race, McEvoy said: “For about 48 meters it was amazing, before the last two meters knowing ‘I’ve got to get this touch as good as I can, with only a bit of a glide.
“Thinking ‘oh no’ – fingers crossed. Then I turned around and saw the first and I was pretty pleased about that.
“It was very hard to contain myself. I don’t think I’ve ever celebrated that much after a race ever – that’s a first for me too…”
McEvoy, now 30, won Australia’s first ever medal in an event first swum in Seoul in 1988 and in a racing schedule that covered 3x50s (heat, semifinal and final) that took him a total of 63.95 seconds (21.32, 21.38 and 21.25). He didn’t draw breath – until it was all over!
SHOW MEDALS: Benjamin Proud of Great Britain, silver, Cameron Mcevoy of Australia, gold, Florent Manaudou of France, bronze show the medals after competing in the swimming 50m Freestyle Men Final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), August 02, 2024. Photo Deep Blue Media.
McEvoy heaped praise on his coach Tim Lane, his girlfriend Maddi Bone, his team at the Queensland Academy of Sport and his family and friends.
In the city where the pioneer of Australian Olympic swimming, Sydney’s Freddie Lane, won our very first gold medals in 1900 – both won in the River Seine in the 220 yards freestyle – swum with the current – and the one off, discontinued Obstacle Race.
And in 1924 when the Games returned to Paris with Manly’s Andrew “Boy” Charlton setting a new world record to win Australia’s first gold medal in the 1500m freestyle.
It’s fitting that the Class of 2024 can celebrate that 100th anniversary of Charlton’s feats, writing its own record-breaking chapter in Australia’s stellar swimming history.
Charlton, at just 16 when he surged to his historic Olympic 1500m gold, which took him 20 minutes 06.6 – a new world record time.
Twenty-three-year-old McKeown also booked her place in swimming’s annals in an Olympic record time of 2 mins 03.73 secs (breaking American Missy Franklin’s 2012 time from London) to become Australia’s greatest ever individual gold medalist, with four golds after completing the 100/200m backstroke double defense from Tokyo.
Before the 200m final, McKeown, with her 100 and 200m golds from Tokyo and her 100m victory in Paris, had joined fellow Australian swimmers, the legendary Dawn Fraser (cheering on from the Paris Arena), Murray Rose, Shane Gould and Ian Thorpe, current kayak golden girl Jess Fox and former track sprinting legend, the late Betty Cuthbert and her current Dolphins teammate Ariarne Titmus all with three individual gold medals.
McKeown now stands alone, for the moment, with four individual gold – a tally that is very much a moveable feast with McKeown (200IM), Titmus (800m freestyle), and kayaker Fox, already the winner of a whitewater double in Paris, up in the new canoe cross event – all chasing the next chapter.
It’s been 20 years since the last swimmer, Ukraine’s Yana Klochkova (2000 and 2004) created her own double-double act defending her Sydney IM double over 200 and 400m, in Athens.
HISTORY MAKER: Kaylee McKeown of Australia has won four individual Olympic gold medals.Two during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at La Defense Arena in Paris (France), July 30, 2024. Photo Deep Blue Media.
On her history making feats, a humble McKeown said: “That is a pretty cool thing to have next to my name and I have looked up to so many cool people growing up in this sport and to be amongst them is amazing…and I would never in a million years have thought I could have achieved what I have done. And I have so much more to give in this sport and I think it’s all down to my coach Michael Bohl and my teammates…”
There was hardly time to celebrate for McKeown, who draped her third gold medal around the neck of her reluctant coach Bohl, before rushing off for her 200IM semifinal.
While a nation and her family and supporters continued to celebrate her history-making feats, her night in the pool wasn’t finished. It was back to business for “the little fish” as she’s known in the McKeown household.
It’s been a nonstop first six days for the Aussie Swim Team – a week (that’s not quite done) doused in gold as the Dolphins continue to make a huge splash in a city that holds so much history.