Trials Night 4: McKeown and Chalmers reign supreme

Fighting illness, feeling pain, and still a victorious Kaylee McKeown (pictured) wants to train harder.

Throughout her career McKeown has been fearless and relentless as she was again in tonight’s 200m backstroke final of the 2026 Australian Swimming Trials.

The 24-year-old ignited Night 4 finals at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre as she turned through the halfway mark well under world record pace.

Coming home, McKeown said she was in “so much pain” as she slowed to touch in a time of 2:03.98, the eighth-fastest swim of her career and the 12th-fastest performance of all-time.

The win saw McKeown claim the backstroke trifecta of 50m, 100m and 200m.

“I knew it was going to be challenging with the week that I’ve had so far, so I just said to myself, ‘go out and roll with it’.”

“What the Americans are doing at the moment, I need to get used to racing like that (again). Unfortunately, I died in the back end but hopefully, with a bit more training and a bit more confidence, the times will come.”

Iona Anderson has had an outstanding meet and claimed another second place finish – and a PB – of 2:07.59 with Hannah Fredericks third (2:07.99). Both went under qualifying time.

In other races, Kyle Chalmers secured his spot at this year’s Commonwealth Games by taking the men’s 100m freestyle in emphatic fashion.

Never in doubt, Chalmers with his trademark back-end speed stormed over the top of a field that featured his 4x100m world champion relay teammates Flynn Southam, Kai Taylor and Max Giuliani, plus rookie Dolphin Jamie Jack.

After qualifying fifth, Chalmers fended off a challenge from Southam to touch in 47.59 seconds. Southam trailed by 0.3 seconds to finish second with Taylor third (48.21).

“Eleven years ago I qualified for my first Australian team in that event, in that lane. So it’s pretty cool to still be doing it. I’m loving it,” Chalmers said.

“We’ve got a lot of depth in Australia, now we’ve just got to translate that into a gold medal at LA 2028. That’s the goal.”

In other events:

• Lani Pallister put on a dominating display in the 800m freestyle and touched in 8:13.41, almost 13-seconds ahead of next best Molly Walker (8:26.01). Walker from Southern Performance is set to make her Dolphins debut in Glasgow. Tiana Kritzinger – already named for Pan Pacs 10km open water – placed third (8:32.60).
• Brisbane’s Lizzy Dekkers cracked the 2:05 mark in the 200m butterfly for the first time in her career and is officially on track to defend her 200m fly Commonwealth Games crown. Dekkers stopped the clock at 2:04.95 and rewrote her own Allcomers record. South Australian Brittany Castelluzzo went out flying and finished second in 2:06.95, also under the qualifying time.
• Lucky Patterson has been a consistent member of the Dolphins team for more than a decade. And tonight she showed Sydney why she is the back-to-back-to-back 400m freestyle world champion in her classification. Patterson dominated the multi-class women’s 400m freestyle and doubled down on her selection for the Para Pan Pacific Championships alongside rookie Victoria Belando Nicholson and 2025 World Championship Dolphin Chloe Osborn.
• Will Petric was a fingernail away from qualifying for the men’s 200m individual medley. First to the wall in 1:57.55, the Nunawading athlete led the field which featured dual Olympians Tommy Neill (1:58.90) and Brendon Smith (1:59.11) who placed second and third respectively. Yet to punch his ticket for Glasgow, Petric looks towards his pet event on Saturday: the 400m IM.
• Three-time Paralympian Tim Hodge added a third event to his Para Pan Pacific Championship dance card when he went under the SB8 men’s qualifying time in the 100m breaststroke final. Hodge, a proud athlete leader of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games team, will be joined in California by rookie Riley Moore, who dipped under the SB9 qualifying time, and Australia’s fastest SB14 breaststroke Jake Michel in California.