Born in Redcliffe on 12th July 2001, Kaylee McKeown is an Australian swimmer and Olympic gold medalist.
Kaylee went to school at St Paul’s Lutheran Primary in Caboolture, and her formative swimming career was at Australian Crawl in Burpengary with junior development coach Jodie Morgan and head coach Chris Mooney.
Kaylee McKeown was just 15 years old when she joined her older sister Taylor on the Australian Dolphins swim team. She was one of the youngest members. She currently trains with the Griffith University swim group with Michael Bohl as her coach.
When she was 15 years old, McKeown competed at the 2016 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, held in August in Maui, Hawaii, United States, winning the gold medal in the 200 metre backstroke with a time of 2:10.01 and the bronze medal in the 100 metre backstroke with a time of 1:01.01
The following year, McKeown competed in the women's 200 metre backstroke event at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships, placing fourth in a World Junior Record time of 2:06.76. McKeown earned her first senior international medal for swimming the heats of the mixed medley relay, in which Australia placed second in the final.
As a 16-year-old the next year, she was the youngest woman on the Swimming Australia roster for the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. McKeown placed fifth in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke events.
McKeown earned her first senior individual medal at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships with a silver medal in the 200 metre backstroke event.
In 2020, McKeown broke her first World Record in the short course 200 metre backstroke event, swimming a time of 1:58.94 at the Australian Championships.
Leading up to the 2020 Summer Olympics, McKeown was the fastest swimmer in the 200 metre individual medley but withdrew from the event to concentrate on the backstroke. McKeown broke the world record in the 100 metre backstroke event at the 2021 Australian Swimming Trials swimming a time of 57.45.
McKeown won the 100 metre backstroke at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics setting a new Olympic record of 57.47 seconds and becoming the first Australian woman to win a backstroke event at an Olympic Games. She also won the 200 metre backstroke event in a time of 2:04.68, and swam the backstroke leg on the gold medal winning women's medley relay.
She is the reigning Olympic champion in the 100 and 200 metres backstroke. She is the world record holder in the long course 50 metre backstroke and both the long course and short course 200 metre backstroke. She won gold in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke at both the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. In 2023, she was named as the "Best Female Swimmer of the Year" by World Aquatics, after sweeping gold in all three events of backstroke (50m, 100m, and 200m) at all three World Cup legs, held in Berlin, Athens and Budapest in October, 2023.
Photos:Delly Carr/ Swimming Australia.
In 2022 Kaylee was awarded an OAM for her services to sport.
Kaylee McKeown is listed on the wall of the Redcliffe Wall of Fame:
A collection of portrait and information honouring the achievements of individuals who have influenced and shaped Redcliffe. The collection is in the Jetty Arcade at 139-141 Redcliffe Parade.
For a complete list of people who appear on the wall click on the following blog post:
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