Simply, the GOAT.

Eight-time world record holder – three current and five former in relays – a haul of 11 Olympic medals, Australia’s most decorated Olympian Emma McKeon has already confessed Paris will be her final Games.

While there is one final Olympic chapter to write you won’t catch the Wollongong native discussing medal tallies or the fact that before her 28th birthday, she had won more Olympic medals than any Australian Olympian in history, a growing group of 4300+ individuals dating back to 1896.

Her excellence, equally matched by her humility, is best explained as a prevailing attitude.

After a gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Emma’s second Olympic Games at Tokyo 2020 and her four gold and three bronze booty was the single biggest medal haul by a female swimmer at an Olympic Games and is tied for the most medals won by a female athlete in any sport at an Olympics.

Her mesmerising performances in Tokyo included:

• One world record (4x100m freestyle relay) and four Olympic records (50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, the women’s 4x100m medley relay and the 4x100m freestyle relay).
• The 4x100m freestyle relay world record was taken down in the final with Cate Campbell, Bronte Campbell, Meg Harris and Emma posting a time of 3:29.69, beating the previous time also set by Australia at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (which Emma was part of).
• She was also Australia’s most successful swimmer at the Rio 2016 Games. In her Olympic debut she took home one gold, two silver and a bronze medal.

Emma first became an Olympic champion on the Australian 4x100m freestyle relay team with Brittany Elmslie, Cate and Bronte – breaking the World record in a time of 3:30.65, bettering Australia’s previous world-best mark of 3:30.98 set at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

The 30-year-old is a member of Australian swimming aristocracy – her father Ron swam at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics and won four Commonwealth Games gold medals.

Her uncle Rob Woodhouse, and now CEO of Swimming Australia, swam at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, winning bronze in Los Angeles in 1984 meanwhile, her brother David (London 2012, Rio 2016) won silver in Rio and her mother Susie (nee Woodhouse) was a Commonwealth Games swimmer at Brisbane 1982.

Emma, who made her Dolphins’ debut at World Short Course in 2010, had her first taste of the Olympics came at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore during 2010, where she took home one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

After narrowly missing selection for the London 2012 Olympic Games, she took a hiatus from swimming.

Emma then rediscovered her passion for the sport and made her senior international debut at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, claiming six medals from six races (four gold and two bronze).

At the 2015 World Championships in Russia, Emma won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay, bronze from the 4x100m medley relay and finished seventh in the 200m freestyle.

In 2018 she took her Commonwealth Games medal tally from six to 12. Emma won gold in the 100m butterfly, 4x100m freestyle relay (world record), 4x200m freestyle relay (Commonwealth Games record) and the 4x100m medley relay (Commonwealth Games record) – while picking up bronze in the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly.

In her fourth successive appearance at the World Championships in 2019, Emma won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 4x200m freestyle relay (World record) – silver in the 4x100m medley relay, mixed 4x100m medley relay and mixed 4x100m freestyle relay – bronze in the 100m butterfly.

It became the most fruitful World Championships campaign of her career.

At the 2021 Olympic trials she powered home in both the 100m and 50m freestyle to claim double gold. Earlier that week Emma also won the 100m butterfly and came second in the 200m freestyle.

Post Tokyo, Emma took a mini break and in 2022 in Birmingham, she became the most successful competitor in Commonwealth Games history, taking her overall total to 20 medals, 14 of them gold.

Her eight medals in Birmingham also equalled the records for the most medals and most gold medals by a competitor at a single Games.

She won gold in the 50m freestyle, the 50m butterfly, the 4x100m freestyle relay, the 4x100m medley relay, the 4x100m mixed freestyle relay and the 4x100m mixed medley relay, silver in the 100m butterfly and bronze in the 100m freestyle.

Then in 2023, Emma played her part as the Dolphins became the most successful team at the World Championships in Fukuoka with 13 gold medals, seven silver and five bronze.

She was the anchor swimmer for Australia in their 4x100m freestyle victory in world record time on the opening night in Fukuoka. Teaming up with Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack and Meg Harris, Emma swam a 51.90 split as the team put together an astonishing 3:27.96, shattering the record set in Tokyo.

She was also part of the Australian team that won silver in the 4x100m medley relay, narrowly beaten by the United States.

The result gave Emma, swimming the butterfly leg, her 20th lifetime World Championship medal, breaking Grant Hackett’s long-standing Australian record of 19.

POD POP UP STAT: If Emma, and the Dolphins, make the final of the 4x100m free and they claim gold in record time; she will break a tie with American Shirley Babashoff at five each for most world records set by a swimmer in the 4x100m free. Also, boasting a sweet tooth, Cadbury chocolate is one of Emma’s favourites.