A Special Thanks to Deep Blue Media for providing the images from this meet Rare Morning Medal Swim Perfect Payoff for Patient Kensey McMahon at Worlds Kensey McMahon had waited until age 23 to make her international debut for the U.S. senior team in the pool. So waiting a few hours, from prelims to finals Friday at the FINA World Short-Course Championships, to see if her time in the 1,500 freestyle would hold up for a medal may not have seemed all that long. Like it has in her career at large, the patience paid off for McMahon, who leapt up to grab a most unlikely medal. Her time in the morning of 15:49.15 in the morning bested all but two of the eight swimmers in the fastest heat in the night session, meaning the graduate student is headed back to the University of Alabama with a piece of hardware. “I gave everything I had in the morning,” McMahon said. “Team USA support is incredible. And so I knew at the end of the day, whatever happened was going to happen. But definitely very happy with the results and very thankful for my support system.” Kensey McMahon; Photo Courtesy: Austin Bigoney / Alabama Athletics It caps a sensational ride for the 23-year-old. She was a little surprised to see the invite to be part of Team USA in the fall, despite having been a part of U.S. national teams, junior and senior, since her mid-teens and having represented the U.S. for the full open-water national team. She’s flourished in Tuscaloosa, but breaking into the distance fold for the United States is no easy task. It made getting there this year even sweeter for the Bolles School Sharks alum. A finalist at Olympic Trials in the 1,500 in 2021, she’s continued to get faster well into her 20s. “It’s definitely been a process,” McMahon, a former Swimming World intern, said in October. “My whole swimming career has been a lot about patience and trusting the hard work that I’m putting in but knowing that the hard work does pay off, but it just takes some time.” In Melbourne, only 18 women contested the 1,500 free. McMahon who entered with a seed time of 16:16.22, didn’t make the cut for the final heat, seeded 10th. That left her in the seven-person second heat of two in the morning session, knowing she’d need to post a good time, then wait and hope. She did the first part with aplomb, taking a wrecking ball to her seed time to go 15:49.15, a cut of nearly 30 seconds. That gave her a shot at the podium, but she wouldn’t know for hours. Though she approached it with the idea that having already ticked off her primary bucket-list item of the week – hugging a koala – “everything else is just bonus.” In the final, it soon became clear that Lani Pallister was the class of the field. She went out fast and left the field in the dust, going 15:21.43 to set an Oceania record and win her third freestyle gold of the meet. But as the time ticked down and the berth behind her widened to the point of lapping, McMahon saw an opening. Miyu Namba slotted in at 15:46.76, setting an Asian record and grabbing silver from an outside lane. But the third finisher in the final, China’s Zhang Ke, didn’t touch until 15:51.64, giving McMahon a bronze medal while she sat on the deck. While she didn’t have a fellow American to cheer on from that post, the energy she felt with the American contingent is what guided her through the week awaiting her singular swim in Melbourne. “The team is absolutely incredible, and everyone rides off of each other’s momentum,” she said. “And so that’s what I wanted to be a part of. I’ve been super excited to race for the past couple of days and have been patiently waiting my turn. I saw all the other amazing swims and was ready to be a part of that.”
