Kaylee McKeown has three goals at the Paris Olympics. But winning gold – as she did on Tuesday night in the 100m backstroke – is not at the top of the list.
Moments after the Australian had commenced her Olympic campaign in the best way possible, the 23-year-old was asked about medal targets and tallies. With McKeown’s win, Australia’s swimmers have now won four golds in four days at the pool – with five days of competition remaining.
The team is on track to equal or even surpass their best-ever result: nine gold medals at the Tokyo Games. The Dolphins’ rivalry with the United States has also been a subject of much attention; the last time Australia topped the medal tally was in 1956.
“I’ve made it my mission to not be processed around medals or medal tally or anything like that,” McKeown said. “I’ve come to the Olympics to (a) have fun; (b) do the best that I can; and (c) just enjoy the atmosphere, because it’s not everyday you have this many people in the stadium at once.”
McKeown’s answer hinted at the person behind the swimmer. The Queenslander very much swims her own race, in and out of the pool. While many athletes offer up platitudes to that effect, there is a sense with McKeown that her offbeat approach is very much the real thing.
As much came through when McKeown was repeatedly asked about her rival, Regan Smith, taking the Australian’s 100m backstroke world record just last month.
“I’ve been asked that question a few times to be honest with you, and my reaction is: ‘I’m me. I do me,’” McKeown said. “And what I mean by that is I’m my own athlete, I’m happy with whatever comes.”
On Tuesday, what came was an Olympic record and an equal-personal best in front of a capacity crowd, not to mention the gold medal. “It’s really special to me – I’m happy with how I’ve gone so far,” McKeown said.
Not long after, McKeown was asked again about Smith’s new world record, this time by an American journalist, querying whether the Australian remembered the moment she learned her time had been beaten. “I can’t actually remember,” McKeown laughed.
Given the time zones, she suggested, she probably woke up to the news. “To be honest with you, I saw it and thought – that’s a really good time,” she said. Few swimmers are so nonchalant about losing a world record to their closest rival.
There’s another reason McKeown swims her own race in the pool: she is short-sighted. On land, the Australian wears glasses, while in the pool she struggles to see much beyond the splashes around her. It makes for a nervous time at the end of a race, as she squints at the results board to see her placing.
“It is a bit of a scary moment,” McKeown said. “Is that first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth? You never know.” On Tuesday, one of McKeown’s team-mates had told her there was actually a results board behind the starting blocks. On touching the wall, she peered at the board, “just to double check my facts,” before celebrating jubilantly.
The 100m backstroke is only the beginning of a busy Paris program for McKeown. “Thank you for reminding me,” she joked when her packed schedule was brought up after the race.
On Thursday, she will race the heats and semi-finals for the 200m backstroke, where she is defending Olympic champion. If McKeown wins gold the following day, she would become the first Australian swimmer in history to do the “double-double” – defend two different individual Olympic titles.
Friday will be a busy evening for McKeown – she will race both the 200m backstroke final and the semi-final for the 200m individual medley, within less than an hour. Provided she moves through to the final of the four-stroke discipline, McKeown will double-up again on Saturday night with the individual medley and the mixed medley relay finals. Her frenetic campaign will conclude on Sunday, with the women’s medley relay.
But despite all the action to come, McKeown has been trying to take it in her stride. At the Olympic village, the Australian is sharing an apartment with friend and compatriot Mollie O’Callaghan – who won gold in the 200m freestyle on Monday. After O’Callaghan returned to the apartment, her team-mate asked her what she had done to win. Her answer, McKeown recalled, was straight-forward: “‘I don’t know – I just did me.’”
Those words stayed with McKeown on Tuesday, and will remain with her throughout the week. “It’s a real simple reminder just to enjoy everything, enjoy this moment,” she said. “Because it’s not every day you become an Olympian, it’s not every day you become an Olympic gold medallist.”
That may be so. Although in McKeown’s case, there is every chance she becomes an Olympic gold medallist on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Australians can only hope she is having fun, too.
