Kaylee McKeown

Kaylee McKeown
OAM

Training at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires on 10 October 2018
Personal information
Full name	Kaylee Rochelle McKeown
Born	(2001-07-12) 12 July 2001 (age 23) Redcliffe, Queensland, Australia[3]
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	60 kg (132 lb)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Backstroke, individual medley
Club	Griffith University[1]
Coach	Michael Bohl[2]
Medal record Women's swimming Representing  Australia Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 5 1 3 World Championships (LC) 4 8 0 World Championships (SC) 3 1 1 Commonwealth Games 4 1 1 Total 16 11 5 Olympic Games 2020 Tokyo 100 m backstroke 2020 Tokyo 200 m backstroke 2020 Tokyo 4×100 m medley 2024 Paris 100 m backstroke 2024 Paris 200 m backstroke 2024 Paris 4×100 m medley 2020 Tokyo 4×100 m mixed medley 2024 Paris 200 m medley 2024 Paris 4×100 m mixed medley World Championships (LC) 2022 Budapest 200 m backstroke 2023 Fukuoka 50 m backstroke 2023 Fukuoka 100 m backstroke 2023 Fukuoka 200 m backstroke 2017 Budapest 4×100 m mixed medley 2019 Gwangju 200 m backstroke 2019 Gwangju 4×100 m medley 2022 Budapest 200 m medley 2022 Budapest 4×100 m medley 2022 Budapest 4×100 m mixed medley 2023 Fukuoka 4×100 m medley 2023 Fukuoka 4×100 m mixed medley World Championships (SC) 2022 Melbourne 100 m backstroke 2022 Melbourne 200 m backstroke 2022 Melbourne 4×50 m medley 2022 Melbourne 4×100 m medley 2022 Melbourne 200 m medley Commonwealth Games 2022 Birmingham 100 m backstroke 2022 Birmingham 200 m backstroke 2022 Birmingham 4×100 m medley 2022 Birmingham 4×100 m mixed medley 2022 Birmingham 200 m medley 2022 Birmingham 50 m backstroke Summer Youth Olympics 2018 Buenos Aires 50 m backstroke 2018 Buenos Aires 100 m backstroke 2018 Buenos Aires 4×100 m medley 2018 Buenos Aires 200 m backstroke Junior Pan Pacific Championships 2016 Maui 200 m backstroke 2016 Maui 100 m backstroke

Kaylee Rochelle McKeown OAM (/məˈkjuːən/ mə-KEW-ən; born 12 July 2001) is an Australian swimmer and quintuple Olympic gold medalist. She is the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 and 200 metres backstroke. She is the world record holder in the long course 50 metre backstroke, the short course 100 metre backstroke and both the long course and short course 200 metre backstroke.^[4][5] She won gold in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke at both the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. In 2023, she was named as the "Best Female Swimmer of the Year" by World Aquatics, after sweeping gold in all three events of backstroke (50m, 100m, and 200m) at all three World Cup legs, held in Berlin, Athens and Budapest in October, 2023.^[6]

Kaylee McKeown was just 15 years old when she joined her older sister Taylor on the Australian Dolphins swim team. She was one of the youngest members.^[7] She currently trains with the Griffith University swim group with Michael Bohl as her coach.^[1][2]

When she was 15 years old, McKeown competed at the 2016 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, held in August in Maui, Hawaii, United States, winning the gold medal in the 200 metre backstroke with a time of 2:10.01 and the bronze medal in the 100 metre backstroke with a time of 1:01.01.^[8]

The following year, McKeown competed in the women's 200 metre backstroke event at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, placing fourth in a World Junior Record time of 2:06.76.^[9][10] McKeown earned her first senior international medal for swimming the heats of the mixed medley relay, in which Australia placed second in the final.^[11]

As a 16-year-old the next year, she was the youngest woman on the Swimming Australia roster for the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.^[12] McKeown placed fifth in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke events.^[13][14]

McKeown earned her first senior individual medal at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships with a silver medal in the 200 metre backstroke event.

In 2020, McKeown broke her first World Record in the short course 200 metre backstroke event, swimming a time of 1:58.94 at the Australian Championships.^[15]

Leading up to the 2020 Summer Olympics, McKeown was the fastest swimmer in the 200 metre individual medley but withdrew from the event to concentrate on the backstroke.^[16] McKeown broke the world record in the 100 metre backstroke event at the 2021 Australian Swimming Trials swimming a time of 57.45.^[17]

McKeown won the 100 metre backstroke at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics setting a new Olympic record of 57.47 seconds and becoming the first Australian woman to win a backstroke event at an Olympic Games.^[18] She also won the 200 metre backstroke event in a time of 2:04.68, and swam the backstroke leg on the gold medal winning women's medley relay.^[19]

Following the 2020 Games, McKeown's longtime Chris Mooney left USC Spartans on the Sunshine Coast and moved to become head coach at Bond University on the Gold Coast. McKeown then transferred to Griffith University Swimming Club on the Gold Coast to train under Michael Bohl, who was best known for coaching Olympic Champions Emma McKeon and Stephanie Rice.

Following her performances at the 2022 Australian Short Course Swimming Championships, held in Sydney in August, McKeown was named to the roster for the 2022 World Short Course Championships.^[1] On the first day of competition, she ranked twelfth in the preliminaries of the 100 metre backstroke, qualifying for the semifinals with her time of 57.11 seconds.^[20] Later in the morning, she qualified for the final of the 200 metre individual medley with an overall rank of fourth in the preliminaries with a time of 2:06.07.^[21] In the evening session, she started off with a bronze medal-win in the 200 metre individual medley in an Oceanian, Commonwealth, and Australian record time of 2:03.57 before qualifying for the final of the 100 metre backstroke approximately 20 minutes later with a time of 56.35 seconds that ranked her sixth across both semifinal heats.^[22][23][24]

On day two, McKeown won the gold medal in the 100 metre backstroke with a personal best time of 55.49 seconds.^[25][26] The morning of day three, she ranked tenth in the preliminaries of the 50 metre backstroke with a time of 26.24 seconds and advanced to the semifinals.^[27] In the evening semifinals, she placed ninth with a time of 26.09 seconds.^[28] Two days later, she swam the backstroke portion of the 4×50 metre medley relay in the preliminaries in a time of 26.42 seconds, helping qualify the relay to the final ranking first in an Oceanian and Australian record time of 1:44.78.^[29] When the finals relay placed first in a time of 1:42.35, she won a gold medal for her efforts in the preliminaries.^[30]

Day six of six, McKeown started in the morning in the preliminaries of the 200 metre backstroke, where she ranked second in 2:02.32 and advanced to the final.^[31] In the final, she was the only one to finish in a time faster than 2:00.00, winning the gold medal with a 1:59.26 that was 0.32 seconds slower than her world record mark from 2020.^[32] She concluded the session with a silver medal in the 4×100 metre medley relay, leading-off with a 55.74 for the backstroke portion to help finish in an Oceanian, Commonwealth, and Australian record time of 3:44.92.^[33]

At the beginning of the 2023 season, McKeown broke the long course 200 metre backstroke world record at the 2023 NSW State Open Championships.^[34] With this record, McKeown became the second swimmer to hold the Olympic title, Commonwealth title, Long Course World Championship title, Short Course World Championship title, Long Course world record and Short Course world record in the same event concurrently, following compatriot Grant Hackett in the 1500 metre freestyle.^[35]

At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships McKeown swept the 50, 100 and 200 metre backstroke events, breaking the Oceanian record in the 50 metre backstroke and the championship record in the 100 metre backstroke.^[36][37][38] McKeown became only the second swimmer to ever win the 50, 100 and 200 metre events of the same stroke during the same championships, after China's Qin Haiyang completed the breaststroke sweep the day prior.^[39][40]

McKeown was the overall winner of the 2023 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup after sweeping the backstroke events at all three stops.^[41] At the final stop in Budapest, McKeown broke both the 50 metre and 100 metre backstroke world records (breaking her own world record in the latter) and became the first woman to break the long course 50, 100 and 200 metre backstroke world records during their career, and the first woman to hold all three concurrently.^[42]

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McKeown won gold in the 100m backstroke in a time of 57.33,^[43] setting a new Olympic record, matching her Oceanian record and becoming the second woman to repeat gold in this event after American Natalie Coughlin. Days later, Mckeown won gold in the 200m backstroke, charging home to out split her nearest rival, American Regan Smith by over seven tenths of a second, setting a new Olympic record of 2.03.73, beating the previous record set by American Missy Franklin at the 2012 London Olympics. Mckeown won the 100m and 200m backstroke events at the Paris Olympics, becoming the first woman in history to win both titles in two consecutive Olympic games and only the second person to ever achieve this, after East Germany's Roland Matthes. McKeown also won silver in the 4 × 100 metre medley relay and bronze in the 200 metre individual medley (after the original third placer Alexandra Walsh disqualified due to improper transition from backstroke to breaststroke) and mixed 4 × 100 metre medley relay.

Meet	50 back	100 back	200 back	200 medley	400 medley	4×50 medley	4×100 medley	4×100 mixed medley
PACJ 2016	—			17th		—		—
WC 2017			4th		16th	—
CG 2018		4th	4th		9th	—		—
PAC 2018	—	5th	5th			—
YOG 2018				7th	—			9th
WC 2019	4th	5th				—
OG 2020	—					—
WC 2022	5th	DNS				—
CG 2022						—
SCW 2022	9th					[a]		—
WC 2023				DQ		—
OG 2024	—					—

^a McKeown swam only in the preliminary heats.

As of 11 June 2024

As of 28 September 2024

^a split 58.01 for backstroke leg; with Chelsea Hodges (breaststroke), Emma McKeon (butterfly), Cate Campbell (freestyle)

• In the 2022 Australia Day Honours McKeown was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.^[51]
• In 2023, Australian Institute of Sport Performance Awards Female Able-Athlete of the Year^[52]
• 2023 World Aquatics Female Athlete of the Year^[53]
• 2023 Swimming World Female Swimmer of the Year^[54]
• 2020 and 2023 SwimSwam Female Swimmer of the Year^[55][56]

In August 2020, McKeown's father, Sholto, died after a two-year battle with brain cancer.^[57] She has a tattoo on her foot in his memory that says, "I'll always be with you".^[58]

McKeown has been dating fellow Australian national team member and 2020 Olympian Brendon Smith since November 2021.Brendon and Kaylee broke up their relationship in August 2024, after the Olympic Games ^[2]

• List of Youth Olympic Games gold medalists who won Olympic gold medals

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kaylee McKeown.

• Kaylee McKeown at Swimming Australia (archived) (2018-06-12)
• Kaylee McKeown at World Aquatics
• Kaylee McKeown at SwimRankings.net
• Kaylee McKeown at Olympics.com
• Kaylee McKeown at Olympedia
• Kaylee McKeown at the Australian Olympic Committee

Sporting positions
Preceded by Beata Nelson	FINA Swimming World Cup Overall female winner 2023	Succeeded by Incumbent
Records
Preceded by Liu Xiang	Women's 50-metre backstroke world record-holder (long course) 20 October 2023 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by Regan Smith	Women's 100-metre backstroke world record-holder (long course) 13 June 2021 – 18 June 2024	Succeeded by Regan Smith
Preceded by Regan Smith	Women's 200-metre backstroke world record-holder (long course) 10 March 2023 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by Minna Atherton	Women's 100-metre backstroke world record-holder (short course) 26 September 2024 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by Katinka Hosszú	Women's 200-metre backstroke world record-holder (short course) 28 November 2020 – present	Incumbent