Kaylee McKeown Breaks SCM 200 Back World Record | SwimSwam

By Retta Race on SwimSwam

2020 SWIMMING AUSTRALIA VIRTUAL C’SHIPS

• Thursday, November 26th – Sunday, November 29th
• Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, Perth & Melbourne
• SCM (25m)
• Start dates & times vary in each city
• SwimSwam Preview
• Start Lists/Results

Although we saw most of the Australians pull out of the International Swimming League (ISL) season 2 due to coronavirus-related travel restrictions, nearly all of the nation’s best are in the water this weekend contesting the widespread Virtual National Championships.

One such swimmer is 20-year-old Kaylee McKeown, who made her presence known in a big way right off the bat with a World Record in the women’s 200m backstroke.

Swimming at the Brisbane location of Chandler, World Championships silver medalist McKeown fired off a time of 1:58.94 en route to topping the fields across the 5 locations.

That not only crushed the USC Spartan team member’s previous 2back lifetime best of 2:03.04 from last year, but it overtook the current World Record of 1:59.23 that’s been on the books since 2014. Hungary’s Iron Lady Katinka Hosszu put that mark on the books at that year’s World Short Course World Championships.

Splits are not available at this time, but the next closest competitor to McKeown tonight was SCM 100 backstroke World Record Minna Atherton, who touched in 2:03.64 also racing in Brisbane.

McKeown has been on a tear as of late, competing at the Queensland Medal Shots Long Course meet just earlier this month. There she hit two new national records, with a LCM 100 backstroke time of 58.11 and a 200 backstroke time of 2:04.49.

McKeown was the silver medalist last year in Gwangju behind the World Record setter in the 2back in long course at that meet, Regan Smith of the United States.

Read the full story on SwimSwam: Kaylee McKeown Breaks SCM 200 Back World Record