Backstroking queen Kaylee McKeown has tonight swum into a realm where only she and US rival Regan Smith have ventured as she chased her first personal in three years – her own world record – on night four of the Australian Trials at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.
And the unstoppable McKeown, who has battled illness coming into the meet, was on world record pace for the first 100m of her 200m backstroke final, dropping off in the final stages, but still stopping the clock at 2:03.98 – her eighth time under 2:04.00.
STYLISH: Kaylee McKeown in action. Photo Courtesy Delly Carr (Swimming Australia)
The 24-year-old out in 29.00 (0.34) for the first 50m faster than she herself split in 2023 when she set the world record at 2:03.14 at this same pool.
Staying just under the 100m split at 1:00.58 before drifting marginally over at the 150m mark, turning in 1:32.08.
Saying after the race she was chasing a personal best as “I hadn’t swum one in three years…I wanted to go out hard and then see what I could come back in..closing my eyes and going for it down the last lap.”
McKeown was well under the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs and will be joined by fellow Olympian Iona Anderson (Highlanders, WA) who did swim a big personal best to join McKeown on the Dolphins teams – swimming 2:07.59 to jump into the Australian all-time top 10.
With Hannah Fredericks (St Peters Western, QLD) third in 2:07.99 – just outside the qualifying team.
Female 200m backstroke swims under 2:04.00
2:03.14 Kaylee McKeown
2:03.30 McKeown
2:03.33 McKeown
2:03.35 Regan Smith
2:03.69 Smith
2:03.70 McKeown
2:03.73 McKeown
2:03.80 Smith
2:03.84 McKeown
2:03.85 McKeown
2:03.98 McKeown
2:03.99 Smith
BREATH-TAKING: Lani Pallister has been in great form. Photo Courtesy Delly Carr (Swimming Australia)
While St Peters Western team mates Lani Pallister and Lizzy Dekkers both put on a dominating displays – Pallister in the 800m freestyle and Dekkers in the 200m butterfly.
Pallister adding the 800m to her 400m win and second-placed finish in the 200m, touching in 8:13.41 (4:02.32) was under world record pace for the first half of the race, but knowing she faced the toughest of tasks, with Katie Ledecky negative splitting her world record ofn 8:04.12, set last year.
But a time almost 13-seconds ahead of Australia’s next best, South Australian rising star, Molly Walker (8:26.01) from the Southern Performance club, who is set to make her Dolphins debut in Glasgow. Tiana Kritzinger (Rackley, QLD)- already named for Pan Pacs 10km open water – placed third (8:32.60).
MIRROR IMAGE: Lizzy Dekkers puts on a show in the 200 fly. Photo Courtesy Delly Carr (Swimming Australia)
Dekkers became only the third Australian behind Jess Schipper and Madeline Groves to crack the 2:05 mark in the 200m butterfly for the first time in her career and is officially on track to defend her Commonwealth Games 200m butterfly crown.
Dekkers stopped the clock at 2:04.95 and rewrote her own Australian All-comers record.
Last year’s World Championship debutant South Australian Brittany Castelluzzo (Tea Tree Gully) went out flying and finished second in 2:06.95, also under the qualifying time.
In the men’s 200IM, Will Petric was just a fingernail away from posting a qualifying time for Glasgow and Irvine. First to the wall in 1:57.55, the boy from Nunawading led home the field which featured dual Olympians Tommy Neill(1:58.90) from Rackley who had qualified for the final through an unseeded heat and St Peters Western’s Brendon Smith(1:59.11) who placed second and third respectively.
Yet to punch his ticket for Glasgow, Petric looks towards his pet event, the 400m IM on Saturday.
WHERE THERE’S A WILL: Nunawading’s Will Petric will get his fin al chance to qualify in the 400IM. Photo Courtesy Delly Carr (Swimming Australia).
In the Multi-Disability events, Paralympic gold medallist Lucky Patterson, who has been a consistent member of the Dolphins team for more than a decade, showed Sydney why she is the back-to-back-to-back 400m freestyle world champion in her classification.
Patterson (USC Spartans, QLD) dominated the multi-class women’s 400m freestyle and doubled down on her selection for the Para Pan Pacific Championships alongside rookie Victoria Belando Nicholson (University of QLD) and 2025 World Championship Dolphin Chloe Osborn (Blacktown, NSW).
Three-time Paralympian Tim Hodge (Blacktown, NSW) added a third event to his Para Pan Pacific Championship dance card when he went under the SB8 men’s qualifying time in the 100m breaststroke final.
MAKING HER OWN LUCK: No stopping Lakeisha “Lucky” Patterson. Photo Courtesy Delly Carr (Swimming Australia).
Hodge, is now a proud athlete leader of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games team, will be joined in California for the Pan Pacs by NSW Central Coast rookie Riley Moore who swims for Woden Valley, ACT, who dipped under the SB9 qualifying time, and Australia’s fastest SB14 breaststroker, Paralympic silver medallist, Jake Michel.