Backstroke queen Kaylee McKeown reigns supreme with 100m gold at Paris Olympics

The queen of the women’s 100m backstroke is back. On Tuesday night, Australia’s Kaylee McKeown defended her Tokyo title in a fast and furious battle with Regan Smith. The American had taken McKeown’s world record just last month, but in Paris the Australian out-touched her opponent in the race for the wall to reassert her dominance of the two-lap discipline.

Between them, McKeown and Smith hold all 15 of the fastest times in history in the 100m backstroke. Since Tokyo, they have traded the world record and world titles. But on Tuesday, only one could emerge victorious.

It promised to be a thrilling race: the pair were separated by just two one-hundredths of a second in the semi-finals. And it delivered. So much for a slow pool. The pair were almost level at the turn, before McKeown powered home in the final metres to set a new Olympic record, beating her own mark from the Tokyo Games

McKeown joins Dolphins teammate Ariarne Titmus, and swimming legend Dawn Fraser, as the only Australian women to defend their individual Olympic gold medals. American Katharine Berkoff rounded out the podium, while McKeown’s compatriot Iona Anderson finished fifth.

In the men’s 800m freestyle final, Australian Elijah Winnington – who has already won a silver medal in Paris in the 400m event – went out hard to lead for the first half of the race. But Winnington struggled to stay with the pack as long-distance specialists Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen, Italian Gregorio Paltrinieri and American Bobby Finke made their move in the closing stages. Winnington ultimately placed eighth, while Wiffen became the first Irishman to ever win an Olympic gold medal in the pool.

Earlier in the night, Rio 2016 gold medallist Kyle Chalmers secured a berth in the men’s 100m freestyle final by winning his semi-final and clocking the second fastest time overall. Chalmers anchored the Australian men to silver in the 4x100m relay on Saturday with an ominously fast last leg – below the current world record, although Chalmers’s effort does not count as a new record due to the flying start in relay transitions. He will race for gold on Wednesday.

McKeown’s successful defence of her 100m crown is a golden start to what could be a historic Olympic swim meet for the Queenslander. Already a three-time gold medallist from Tokyo, the 23-year-old will race in two more individual events in Paris: the 200m backstroke, where she faces another duel with Smith, and the 200m individual medley. McKeown did not contest the four-stroke race at the last Olympics, wanting to limit her program load at her debut Games.

At last month’s trials in Brisbane, McKeown set the fastest time in eight years. After being disqualified in the semi-finals of the 2023 world championships, in a contentious decision over an allegedly illegal back-to-breast turn, McKeown is raring to go in the individual medley. If McKeown wins both of the remaining races on her individual program, she would join Emma McKeon as the most successful Australian Olympian in history – with six gold medals.

McKeown is also expected to race for Australia in the women’s 4x100 medley relay and the mixed medley relay; Australia is a prospect of securing medals in both relays.

In other words, the Michael Bohl-coached swimmer has a busy few days ahead at La Défense Arena. But on Tuesday, McKeown began her Paris campaign in the best possible style.