World Aquatics Championships 2023: Kaylee McKeown takes women's 100m backstroke in Championship record time
McKeown overcomes personal disappointment in the 200m medley to win the women's 100m back final in Fukuoka.
Swimming
Kaylee McKeown of Australia claimed her maiden women's 100m world title at the World Aquatics Championships 2023 in Fukuoka, Japan, on Tuesday (25 July).
The Australian swimmer, who had suffered a controversial disqualification from the 200m individual medley semi-finals two days earlier, put that incident behind her to overhaul defending champion Regan Smith of USA, the Championship record holder from 2019, inside the final 25 metres of the race.
McKeown, the world record holder, came close to her best mark but settled for a new Championship record 57.53 seconds at the line, 0.25 seconds ahead of Smith.
Smith had a fast reaction and was first to the turn under the world record split, but tired slightly in the closing metres as McKeown overtook her.
However, the American held on to silver (57.78) as her teammate Katharine Berkoff took bronze (58.25).
"That (win) means a lot, I've had a hard 48 hours," McKeown said in her post-race poolside interview. "But it was great being amongst these girls and being among the Americans, they bring out the best.
"If you're not learning you're not growing. I had to find a positive in a negative and that's what I did, I channelled it."
She added in the mixed zone: "I was very, very nervous heading in, probably more so than I have ever been. I think it was just a real testament to myself dealing with what I have over the past few hours and I'm really happy to have the Americans chase me, because I don't think without them I would have done as fast as I did, so great having them by my side.
"I think nerves just means that you care about what you're doing and just when you've trained so hard for something, you just want it to all come together at the right moment and I just wanted to prove to myself that I'm still swimming fast and that's as best as I could do tonight."
Meanwhile, the men's 100m backstroke final also saw two Americans on the podium as Ryan Murphy (52.22) won an exciting race in which he came back from fourth at the turn to find himself neck-and-neck with Italy's Thomas Ceccon (52.27) for most of the second 50. From lane eight, Murphy's teammate Hunter Armstrong (52.58) touched home in third.