Emma McKeon is an Olympic icon, an Australian swimming legend, and now a Swammer. At the Paris 2024 Olympics, McKeon became one of only 2 women in swimming to ever win 14 Olympic medals over her career, joining Katie Ledecky who accomplished the same feat at the same meet. SwimSwam caught up with McKeon after she had enjoyed some well-earned rest, recovery, and travel since Paris.
The Aussie shared what her life has looked like since stepping away from swimming but also reflected on the leadup to her final meet. McKeon revealed that just 2-3 weeks out from Paris, she was contemplating not even going due to the severity of pain she was having in her shoulders. However, she was able to manage her injury through the Games and walk away with a gold, silver, and bronze, securing her legacy as one of the greatest Olympians ever.
In the SwimSwam Podcast dive deeper into the sport you love with insider conversations about swimming. Hosted by Coleman Hodges and Gold Medal Mel Stewart, SwimSwam welcomes both the biggest names in swimming that you already know, and rising stars that you need to get to know, as we break down the past, present, and future of aquatic sports.
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Music: Otis McDonald
www.otismacmusic.com
Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners
The “trying to still care about a retired swimmer” challenge. Difficulty: impossible.
I saw Emma in Darling Harbour last year 😊
Wow, that prep for Paris sounds excruciating. And after the 51.94 split in the relay heat, in the final she had to hold off the fastest American to be able to hand Meg a lead.
Talk about overcoming adversity to get the job done for the team.
Why do Americans always comment on why Australia is so good at swimming despite our population? The answer is obvious and always has been… swimming is ingrained in our culture. Nearly everyone here knows how to swim well and enjoy the water. 90% of the population live within 100km of the coast. It is the same reason Norway excel in cross country skiing for example. It is a deeply embedded part of our society.
USA are good at many sports mainly due to their large population and financial backing not necessarily because they have a deep embedded culture in any particular sport.
This is such a weird thing to get upset about. Saying we’re good at swimming relative to our population is a positive.
Also your stats are just incorrect. Latest stats suggest over 25% of Australian adults either can’t swim or are very weak swimmers, and 40% of children cannot swim or are weak swimmers when they finish primary school.
USA also has 237x as many public pools as Australia, or 18x more per capita. Seems pretty ingrained in culture.
And that silly Titmus keeps taking year long holidays.
She’s only done one of those. Her other breaks were 2-3 months.
Individually, she is the 8th most successful female swimmer of all time by Olympic medals. Not a bad effort for someone who’s only been to 2 Olympics and keeps “taking holidays”
Silly is self reflective in that comment….
Great interview Coleman! I’ve not heard Emma talk in detail about the lead in to Paris before now. Love her grit and determination- she performed so well in Paris, especially in the 4×100.
Her butterfly splits were good too- especially the 55.86 in the mixed relay.
Sounds terrible to be honest. I had no idea it got so bad. Makes me appreciate her performance in Paris even more.
Yeah, I’d heard Bohly talk after trials about some of the difficulties, and it makes more sense of some other comments I’d heard about Bronte being likely to get the finals swim. After the first staging camp there was no way you would have thought that Emma would be on the final squad.
When Shannon Rollason talked on his podcast just after leaving the staging camp he seemed to think Bronte was guaranteed a finals spot. That’s why I was so shocked when Emma split a 51 in the heats
Gotta say your interview style is so warm and open that it clearly makes athletes really comfortable to open up. And obviously makes for really enjoyable interviews as a viewer. Love your work 👏🏻
Thank you very much 🙂 Glad you enjoyed. Emma is a national treasure, always honored to have a chat with her.
How can anyone downvote this?
I don’t have any data but hypotheticals:
-Swimmers who finished 2nd to her at the Olympics
-People who don’t believe in national treasure (socialists)
-Introverts who don’t enjoy having chats with anyone
-People with other swimming podcasts
-People who don’t like Coleman because he changes his hairstyle too often
-People who just don’t like SwimSwam
-Misclicks
-Contrarians
-Probably gonna get more downvotes now just because people want to push your buttons
“People who don’t believe in national treasure (socialists)”
Respectfully, America’s national parks and public lands, some of our greatest national treasures, are less respected believed in by Trump and his cronies than by any socialist.
Well I guess we just have different definitions of “treasure” then.
So you don’t consider national parks and public lands “treasures”? But you do consider great athletes “treasures”? And those who don’t consider great athletes “treasures” are somehow “socialists”? Wow
WOW.
Did I just blow your mind? 🤯
Not really. There’s a lot of flat-earthers out there so I’m never surprised by how some people think.
It was more of a rhetorical question, but your answers are very funny.
I think there was some speculation as to how McKeon (with prior shoulder issues) won two sprint events at covid Olympics (a time of limited drug testing) when she had never before won any individual freestyle event at LCM Worlds (she attended five LCM Worlds) or at two prior Olympics. Yes, maybe she just benefitted from injury to Sjostrom, Manuel’s issues, and decline of C1 and C2–but McKeon’s wins definitely raised some eyebrows.
Seems like every time an Australian wins a gold medal its supposedly due to some dark conspiracy.
Before Tokyo Emma McKeon had silver and bronze medals behind some of the greatest swimmers Sjostrom, Ledecky and Pellegrini at Olympics/World Champs. McKeon held off Pellegrini for bronze at Rio 2016 only beaten by Ledecky and Sjostrom. McKeon tied with Ledecky at Budapest 2017. But when she stepped up onto the top of the podium at Tokyo it triggered the usual conspiracy theorists.
You call Tokyo a “covid Olympics”. Does that mean you are downplaying the gold medals won by Americans at Tokyo?.
Of course, if an American, like Nic Fink, suddenly begins winning gold medals approaching age 30 after having no record… Read more »
This ^^^^^^^^
They never give up with this sort of rubbish, do they?
Can y’all go like 45 seconds without complaining about how the Americans are mean to you?
It’s so tedious and boring. JFC.
Salty sore loser Americans are far more tedious.
If Americans stopped slinging insults and coming up with conspiracy theories every time an Australian was successful, Australians probably wouldn’t complain about them doing that? Seems like a you problem
The Nic Fink analogy doesn’t cut it for several reasons. Fink did not win individual Olympic gold medals, nor did he convert from being, say, a butterflier to the world’s top sprint freestyler virtually overnight prior to an Olympics. Nor did Fink ever complain of a shoulder issue prior to winning Olympic gold. Nor did he swim for a nation where both domestic and intl drug testing was pretty much non-existent prior to the Tokyo Olympics. Nor did he swim for a coach who is now coaching CHN swimmers.
Virtually overnight? She came fourth in 2019 and her PB was already 52.4 before the pandemic even hit and has multiple 200 free medals but apparently she was a butterfly specialist. Unbelievable.
McKeon was ranked 4th in the world in the 100 free and 6th in the 50 free in 2019. She came 4th at worlds in 2019.
In what way is that “converting to a sprint freestyler overnight prior to an Olympics”?
Fink literally had never won an individual worlds level medal before the age of 28 and then overnight became a sprint breaststroker? And won an individual silver medal
prior to 2021, fink hadn’t been in the global top 10 since 2015. his 100 breast pb was a 59.40 from 2017, and his world ranking dropping to 43rd (1:00.05) in december 2019. but then he reemerged with a career high in 2021, being 6th in the world with a 58.50
Fink hadn’t won a World or Olympic level medal (individual or relay) of any colour before the pandemic but an enormous haul since then.
He really came out of nowhere in his late 20’s didn’t he. Unlike McKeon.
Further to what Red Hill said about 2019 WC I note McKeon split 52.06 in a relay there which clearly foreshadowed her sub-52 100 Free splits at Tokyo.
Of course there was. She was a non-American who set PBs at a major meet. Of course there was speculation.
She was literally ranked 4th in the world in 2019 in the 100 free and came 4th at worlds. Someone ranked 4th in the world winning a gold medal a couple of years later with half a second drop is not suspicious at all unless you are biased or have limited capacity (or both). For context, Manuel was ranked 11th in the 100 free the year before she won her gold.
She swam 51.91 in an Olympic final, no one has swum faster in the Olympics.
As a matter of fact 51.91 in a Olympic final with all that pressure is the 2nd fastest swim of all time. The only time faster was Sjostroem in a leadoff relay when Sweden has minor chance for bronze way back in 2017.
So Sjostroem has never gone faster in than Mckeon in 5 olympics, nor has Manuel even gone close nor C1 or C2.