It's The Kaylee, Zac and Maddy Show As Sydney Open Winds Up With A Bang

16 May 2021
Zac Stubblety-Cook 2021 Sydney Open

The unstoppable swim star Kaylee McKeown has today continued on her record breaking spree, wrapping up her Olympic Trials preparation with two more world class swims at the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.

The 19-year-old followed up her near world record breaking swim in yesterday’s 100m backstroke win at the Sydney Open with another near miss today – this time in the non-Olympic 50m backstroke. 

Clocking a new Commonwealth and Australian record of 27.16, the girl from USC Spartans was just 0.18secs outside the world mark, set by China’s Lui Xiang in 2018. 

And it came 30 minutes after she established her third No 1 world ranked time of the meet, winning the 200m individual medley in 2:08.73 – a time only bettered in the 2020-21 season by her own 2:08.23, swum at last December’s Queensland State Championships – the third event in her repertoire for Tokyo. 

The day before McKeown missed the 100m backstroke world mark by just 0.06, clocking 57.63 as she set about re-writing the record books in a three-day Sydney stopover en-route to Adelaide and then the long-awaited Tokyo Games. 

The 100m was her second number one world ranked time in two days, coming after her 200m backstroke chart topper (2:04.31) on day one of the last meet before next month’s Olympic Trials at Adelaide’s SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre. 

And the last three days McKeown has lived up to a reputation revealed by her coach at the University of Sunshine Coast, Chris Mooney, as a “no fuss athlete who is not afraid of pain.”

“Kaylee takes her body and her mind and she punches through pain barriers like no one else I’ve ever seen in my life and she doesn’t mind doing it,” said Mooney.

“We really do put a lot of focus and attention on our race processes and we find that if we get those processes done well then the result usually follows.

“We never really focus on the result, just focus on what we can control.”

While all eyes have been on McKeown this week, fellow Queenslander Zac Stubblety-Cook joined in the record setting, clocking a new Australian and NSW All-Comers record of 2:07.00 – the second fastest time in the world this year for 200m breaststroke.

National champion Stubblety-Cook, had earlier in the meet dipped under the minute barrier again in a personal best time of 59.72 to win the 100m, and is well and truly heading towards the Trials in a month with a huge confidence booster.

“It does wonders for the confidence, knowing that all the hard work in training, that comes down to just over two minutes work in the race is certainly paying off and we are on the right track,” said Stubblety Cook.

The meet finished on a high note for former Coffs Harbour girl, now TSS Aquatic, Gold Coast-based Maddy Gough who won the 1500m freestyle in a personal best time of 15:55.14 – a time only bettered by US superstar Katie Ledecky and Germany’s Sarah Kohler – the fastest time by an Australian in six years and seven seconds under the Australian Olympic Qualifying time.

Gough heads to Adelaide for the Trials where she will be chasing a berth on her first Olympic Team up against her TSS team mates Moesha Johnson (third today in 16:14.64) and Kiah Melverton, World Junior champion Lani Pallister (Griffith University) and 10km Olympic qualifier, Noosa’s Kareena Lee (second today in 16:08.40).

A great result too for her coach Chris Nesbit who has just signed up as the new High Performance coach with Carlile Swimming at Ryde - moving to Sydney after a successful tenure with TSS Aquatic, moulding them into one of Australia's most successful programs. 

Photo Credit: Delly Carr (SOPAC)

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