Emma McKeon is Australia’s most profitable Olympian for a motive.
The hero from final yr’s Tokyo Olympics stole the present on the opening night time of the world brief course swimming championships in Melbourne with a blistering relay leg within the girls’s 4x100m freestyle.
Diving within the water a second behind the USA’s Erika Brown, McKeon chewed up the deficit over a lightning quick 4 laps to steer Australia to gold and smash the world file in a time of three:25.43.
Stream Over 50 Sports activities Dwell & On-Demand with Kayo. New to Kayo? Begin your free trial now >
McKeon break up was 49.96 seconds — the primary time a girl has swum a freestyle relay break up in underneath 50 seconds.
Remarkably, McKeon shaved 4 tenths of a second off the earlier quickest relay break up, swum by fellow Australian Cate Campbell.
“It’s fairly cool,” McKeon mentioned of turning into the primary lady to swim the 100m freestyle in sub-50 seconds.
“There’s some unbelievable brief course swimmers who’ve been racing years earlier than me.
“I feel Cate’s received our (particular person) world file so there’s a excessive calibre there. To be the primary individual doing 49 in a relay is fairly cool.”
McKeon is Australia’s most embellished Olympian with 11 medals and her opening hit-out on the world brief course titles in Melbourne suggests she continues to be very a lot on the peak of her powers.
Australia’s girls have been unstoppable within the 4x100m freestyle relay over the previous decade nevertheless it was the primary time they’d received gold within the occasion at a brief course world championships.
And with the world file, the quartet of McKeon, Mollie O’Callaghan (52.19sec), Madi Wilson (51.28) and Meg Harris (52.00) will choose up a $25,000 bonus from swimming’s governing physique for his or her hassle.
Mollie O’Callaghan summed it up finest after the race when she quipped: “All of us did fairly f***ing wonderful.”
McKeon added: “We form of knew that world file was in attain.”
“I at all times put my finest races collectively in a relay I feel. I really like the workforce occasion and I really like placing my finest swim collectively for them. Positively very blissful to try this on the primary night time.”
Within the males’s 4x100m freestyle, Italy broke the world file however Kyle Chalmers rocketed residence in a break up of 44.98 to steer Australia to silver in a really stable consequence.
The dash king seems is in red-hot kind forward of his a lot anticipated showdown with Romanian teen sensation David Popovici within the particular person 100m freestyle on Thursday.
Earlier, Lani Pallister took benefit of a weakened discipline to win the 400m freestyle, whereas Kaylee McKeon claimed bronze within the 200 particular person medley.
