Tokyo Golden Girls Emma McKeon and Kaylee McKeown Return To Racing In Brisbane
Two of Australia’s Tokyo Olympic golden girls Emma McKeon and Kaylee McKeown joined a host aspiring teenagers when they returned to racing at Swimming Queensland’s first Long Course Preparation Meet of the season at the Brisbane Aquatic Centre today.
McKeon (Griffith University) lined up in the women’s 100m freestyle clocking the fastest time of the day with her 54.36 while her club mate McKeown was fastest in the timed finals for both the 100m backstroke and the 100m breaststroke.
Day two saw McKeon back in action clocking 58.51 in a comfortable outing to take out the 100m buttrerfly.
Both girls are setting their sights on the Fina World Short Course Championships in Melbourne in December and are still building up their workload since returning to training post the World Championship/Commonwealth Games/Duel In The Pool and Australian Short Course meets.
McKeown (Griffith University) had a busy morning taking out the 100m backstroke in 59.46 after notching the 100m breaststroke (1:09.24) as she looks towards building towards the individual medley program.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist in the 400IM from 2018 Clyde Lewis (Griffith University) has continued his pathway back notching wins in the 200m butterfly in 2:02.19 and the 100m backstroke in 56.57.
Lewis, who has gate-crashed his way back onto the Australian Dolphins team for the World Short Course meet led from the outset to take the win from training partners, Birmingham finalist Bowen Gough 2:04.33 and Tokyo bronze medallist over 400IM, Brendon Smith in 2:05.24.
The men’s 50m freestyle saw triple Olympian Cameron McEvoy (Somerville House) take the win in 22.82 from Joseph Jackson (Brisbane Grammar) 23.14 and Jayden Allum (Ipswich Grammar) 23.38.
After a brief stint in Sydney, which saw McEvoy spearhead the Manly Swimming Club to a gold medal in the 4x50m freestyle relay at last month’s Australian Short Course Championships, he is now swimming under noted coach Tim Lane at Brisbane’s Sommerville House.
And it was Cody Simpson (Griffith University) who was the fastest of the day in the 100m freestyle in 50.53, backing up top take out the 100m butterfly the following day in 53.62 and like the majority of the swimmers over the weekend, setting sights on the 2022 Queensland State Championships, also in December.
While in the 14 years 50m freestyle, the name Luca Widmer (Pelican Waters) – the son of former Olympic coach Stephan Widmer was the fastest in his age group from Ryan O’Toole (Marist College Ashgrove) 26.01 and Ethan Slatter (Southside Aquatic) 26.11 – a youngster to watch.
The second and final day of the Long Course Preparation Meet continues tomorrow with two sessions from 8.30am and 11.45am local time.
“ Both girls are setting their sights…”
They are women.