By Damien Ractliffe
Australian swim king Kyle Chalmers has stormed into the record books in an epic finish to the world shortcourse swimming championships, to help Australia finish tied for first in the men’s 4x100m medley relay and claim a record 13 gold medals at the event.
Chalmers, who bypassed the individual 200 metres freestyle on Sunday to concentrate on the team event, jumped in the water in third position, but clawed his way towards the lead over the four laps and hit the wall at the same time as his American counterpart. Both teams were declared joint-winners of the gold medal in a world record time of 3:18.98.
The gold medal was Chalmers’ third for the week and his seventh medal at the titles. Emma McKeon also picked up her seventh medal when the women’s 4x100m medley relay team finished second on Sunday night. No Australian swimmer had won more than six medals at a shortcourse championships before Sunday.
Earlier, Kaylee McKeown claimed a historic win of her own in the women’s 200 metres backstroke to become the first Australian woman to hold Olympic, Commonwealth Games, longcourse and shortcourse titles for the same event at the same time.
The 21-year-old stamped her quality at Albert Park on Sunday night in winning the 200m backstroke at the world shortcourse championships, which adds to her gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and the 2022 Budapest longcourse world championships.
“Rohan Taylor, the head coach, actually said that on the way in [that I could achieve the feat] and it started setting off the nerves a little bit,” McKeown told Nine post-race.
“I love nerves, it’s your body letting you know you’re ready to go.”
But McKeown was harsh on herself after falling 0.36 seconds short of her own world record, set in 2020.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the best I could tonight, but it’s another stepping stone and I love training harder,” she said. “It makes me want to train harder.”
Grant Hackett is the only Australian swimmer to ever hold an Olympic, Commonwealth Games, longcourse and shortcourse titles at the same time, completed in 2002 when he won the 1500m freestyle at the Moscow shortcourse event. He already had the Commonwealth Games title, from the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Games, and then the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the 2001 longcourse championships in Fukuoka.
McKeown was the second fastest in the heats on Sunday morning, shaded narrowly by American Claire Curzan. But McKeown finished in front when it mattered, giving Australia a 12th gold medal at the championships at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.
Kaylee McKeown won another gold medal on Sunday night.Credit:AP
That equalled Australia’s best-ever gold medal haul at a shortcourse championships, matching Rio de Janeiro in 1995 and Shanghai in 2006, before the men’s 4x100m medley relay team made it an outright record with 13.
McKeown then lined up in the relay 55 minutes later to claim a silver medal to go with her three gold medals (women’s 100m, 200m backstroke and women’s 4x50m medley relay) and one bronze (women’s 200m medley).
Earlier, Aussies Alexandria Perkins and Matthew Temple finished sixth and seventh respectively in their 100-metre butterfly finals.
Leah Neale (sixth) and Madison Wilson (eighth) missed the podium in their 200m freestyle final, while Thomas Neill snuck into fifth in his final.
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