Kaylee McKeown Breaks 200m Short-Course Backstroke World Record

Kaylee McKeown Breaks 200m Short-Course Backstroke World Record
Kaylee Mckeown
Kaylee Mckeown

Olympic swimming team hopeful Kaylee McKeown broke the 200m short-course backstroke world record at the Australian National Championships, the officials said on Saturday. The 19-year old recorded a blistering 1:58.94 to smash Hungarian Katinka Hosszu‘s 2014 mark of 1:59.23.

“Short-course is something we don’t get to very often so I was excited to see what I could put up after some solid training this year,” McKeown said. “I headed over to my teammates and my coach and they said, ‘you just got a world-record, and I was like, what?’ I didn’t actually know till a few minutes later,” she added.

Kaylee Mckeown a strong prospect for Australia’s swimming Olympic team

Kaylee Mckeown
Kaylee Mckeown

The Australian short-course championships are being held in a virtual format due to the pandemic. Swimmers are competing at the same time in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Hobart.

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The tournament started on Thursday. Kaylee broke the record in Brisbane on Friday. However, Swimming Australia only tweeted about the result on Saturday. The teenager is a strong prospect for Australia’s swimming Olympic team for Tokyo next year. She has already won a silver in 200m backstroke at the long-course world championships held in South Korea.

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