Peerless McKeown sets WR on opening night of short course

A last-minute decision turned into the first world record of the Australian Short Course Championships in Adelaide and it was the peerless Kaylee McKeown (pictured) who naturally set the mark.

The 23-year-old, fresh from her gold-medal performances in Paris, crushed the opening night of finals with a 54.56 in the women’s 100m backstroke to win by more than a second and continue her stellar 2024.

Having already qualified for the World Short Course Championships in Budapest in December courtesy of her Olympic campaign, McKeown entered the meet at South Australia’s Aquatic and Leisure Centre because she was, well, bored.

“I was going a bit stir crazy, sitting at home, so decided to jump back in two and a bit weeks ago, and just increasing the sessions. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but we’re doing some pretty incredible stuff at training,” she said.

“I’ll see how I feel after World Cups (in October/November) … and see if I want to do World Short Course in December … but I’m not putting any pressure on myself.”

With Michael Bohl taking a well deserved break, McKeown has been training under Janelle Pallister – assistant coach to Bohl at Griffith University, a 1988 Olympian and mother of teammate Lani, on the Gold Coast.

“Janelle’s been an absolute legend. She’s taken us on board and obviously she’s been under Bohl for a few years now, so she knows what she’s doing. Lani also produced a great swim tonight, so did a few other young swimmers,” McKeown said.

For Lani, her win in the 200m freestyle booked her first individual swim at an international meet.

Pallister touched in 1:52.73, ahead of Leah Neale (1:53.60) – with both registering qualifying times and seats to Budapest.

For the 22-year-old, who missed her two main events in Paris to then win gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay team, her December date for World  Short Course a panacea after a mixed Olympic campaign.

“Budapest is just fun. I think it’s going to give me an opportunity to just enjoy racing, for the sake of racing without expectation. I just want to go and race, spend time with my friends, and kind of fall back in love with swimming,” Pallister said.

“My campaign in Paris wasn’t one that I expected or one that anyone else expected. I don’t think anyone really anticipates Covid and pulling out of two individual events at your first Olympics. So that was pretty tough to deal with coming home.”

On the opening night of finals, a beaming Pallister was joined by a shocked Edward Sommerville who not only won but also claimed a national record previously held by Cam McEvoy in the men’s 200m freestyle; and a humble Josh Yong who set an Australian record in the men’s 100m breaststroke.

Six months ago Sommerville, 19, dislocated his left shoulder during training hijinks and didn’t even know if he would make Adelaide trials let alone Budapest but his time of 1:40.64 saw him touch first ahead of Paris Olympic medallist Max Giuliani (1:41.39) who also qualified for Budapest.

For Yong, his 56.76 came on the back of his breakout Paris campaign in which he broke the 59 second barrier in his breaststroke leg on his way to winning an Olympic bronze medal in the 4x100m medley relay. Joshua Collett also qualified for Budapest touching in 57.29.

In all, 12 swimmers registered qualifying times for Budapest including dual Olympian Isaac Cooper who smashed out a 50.17 to win the men’s 100m backstroke before having to wait almost an hour for technical officials to rule on an equipment failure for Marius Boll in lane zero.

Boll will now swim a time trial in the next few days but the result of Cooper first and Kalani Ireland second (51.35) will stand.

In other results:

• Tara Kinder clocked 1:05.23 and the rapidly improving Sienna Harben (1:05.28) to also go under qualifying time and in the case of Harbin, from Bond University, equal the qualifying mark. The 20-year-old Harbin is one of the surprise packets of Night One finals after finally committing herself to fulltime training.
• Paralympian Ella Jones won the 400m freestyle multi-class ahead of Victoria Belando Nicholson with Hannah Price third.
• Olympic open water silver medallist Moesha Johnson (15:59.36) finished second in the 1500m free to post a Budapest qualifier behind Tiana Kritzinger (15:52.90).

Full results here: Click here