21-Year-Old Australian Swimmer Adds Her Name Again on the 100M Backstroke World Record Finishing Less Than a Second Behind Her 2021 Record

Australian swimming star Kaylee McKeown is a seasoned veteran of the pool. Having won three Olympic gold medals, in addition to her short- and long-course 200-meter backstroke records, she also holds the long-course 100-meter backstroke world record. Her 57.45-second performance in the 100-meter backstroke trial for the Tokyo Olympics put her at the top of the world rankings. The Australian swimmer didn’t simply back out; she went on to achieve yet another world record, this time falling short by just 0.05 seconds of her previous record.

The news that Kayle McKeown had broken yet another record went viral in the sports world. Everyone was so shocked by the 21-year-old’s progress leading up to the 2024 Paris Olympics that the news quickly spread over social media.

Fire performance at the swimming trials

Last night, Melbourne played host to the 2023 Australian World Championship Trials. In the women’s 100-meter backstroke race, Kaylee McKeown was one of eight competitors. But everyone’s attention was on McKeown and Mollie O’Callaghan, and they certainly made the audience go crazy for them. The opening fifty meters of the swim were fought over fiercely by McKeown and O’Callaghan. After finishing the 50-meter distance and turning around, these two Australian swimmers got into another heated confrontation. The Olympic champion from Griffith University was the first to reach the surface, and her winning time of 57.50 seconds was only 0.05 seconds slower than her personal best and the current world record mark of 57.45 seconds, both of which she established in 2021.

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To win, McKeown swam an opening 28.27 seconds and a closing 29.23 seconds. Silver went to Olympian Mollie O’Callaghan, who matched her personal best with a time of 58.42, while bronze went to Iona Anderson, who clocked in at 1:01.05 to round out the top 3. The Olympic athlete said the race was “nice” and that she would use the experience to improve for future competitions and even the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

The time was the third-fastest ever recorded. It’s slower than both the world record and the Olympic record she achieved in Tokyo in 2021, when she won gold.

Another banger previously this year

The Australian swimmer’s talents aren’t limited to the 100-meter backstroke. A month earlier, at the 2023 Sydney Open, McKeown had a spectacular performance, this time in the 200m. She started in 1:01.04 and finished in 1:03.14, producing the second-fastest time of her career and winning by more than 10 seconds.

In the 200-meter event, McKeown had made the world record barely a month prior at the Australian National Championships. She swam a time of 2 minutes, 3.14 seconds, which was faster than her previous best of 2 minutes, 4.28 seconds, set at the 2021 Australian Trials. Her swimming prowess remains unrivaled, and her 2024 Olympic performance in Paris will be eagerly anticipated by her legion of followers.

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