Article by Julian Linden, courtesy The Australian.
If the true measure of greatness is doing things others can’t even fathom, then Kaylee McKeown really is in a league of her own.
Because the current Australian swim team is packed with so many performers, her feats sometimes get lost in the wash.
But what McKeown has achieved at the Paris Olympics is so extraordinary, it elevates her above everyone else, not only her contemporaries but also those that came before.
Her latest victory – winning gold in the 200m backstroke – is uncharted territory in the history of Australian sport.
For anyone who has lost count, this is what she’s just done.
After winning the 100m-200m backstroke double at the last Olympics in Tokyo, she’s done it again in Paris.
If that doesn’t sound all that special, consider this.
Only one female swimmer in the 128 year history of the modern Olympics has completed a double-double. That was Ukrainian Yana Khlockova who won the 200m and 400m medleys in 2000 and 2004.
No-one else has done it, ever. Not Dawn Fraser, not even Katie Ledecky.
But now McKeown has.
Not only that, she’s also become the only Australian to win four gold medals in individual events at the Olympics. That’s not just swimmers, or just women, that’s all sports, both genders, all time.
She also has a medley relay gold from Tokyo, giving her a total of five, level with Ian Thorpe and Mollie O’Callaghan. Only Emma McKeon, with six, has more, but McKeown isn’t close to being finished yet because she’s just 23 and is hungry for more.
But it’s not just the number of medals she’s accrued that makes McKeown so special.
It’s what she does and how she does it.
Backstroke isn’t one of swimming’s glamour strokes because it’s weird in every way.
And it hurts like hell.
Because the competitors rely so heavily on their kicking, their legs fill with lactic acid. When they get to the end of a 200m race, the pain is so excruciating they can hardly walk straight when they climb out of the pool.
McKeown feels the same pain as everyone else but it’s how she manages herself that makes her unbeatable.
Undefeated in 100m and 200m backstroke since 2019, she has that rare ability to deep a clear mind when the pressure is at its most suffocating.
In June, she lost her 100m world record to American Regan Smith but beat her when it mattered in Paris, both in the 100m and 200m.
McKeown’s time in the final was 2.03.73, just 0.59 outside the 200m world record she set last year. Smith finished half a second behind the Aussie after leading at the start of the last lap. Canada’s Kyle Masse won the bronze.
In an exclusive interview with this masthead before Paris, McKeown gave a rare insight into what she’s thinking about during a race. It helps explain why no one can beat her.
“I’m going to throw myself under the bus here but I’m very judgmental before I race. I love watching people and what they do,” she said.
“Whether or not that’s judgmental or not, I’d say it is because I’ve watched cameramen walk backwards. I’m like, Why would you walk like that? You know, secret little things like that.
“I’d never externally say, obviously I just did, but you kind of just make fun of things in your own head to distract yourself because all eyes are on, however many thousand people are standing in the stands watching you.
“It’s like you’re an ant in a zoo, basically. So you just got to make yourself feel like you’re the lion.”
