On-Fire McKeon Pops 24.00 Olympic Record In 50 Free

2020 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
  • Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
• Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
• Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
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During the penultimate swimming finals session of these Tokyo Olympic Games, we saw Australian Emma McKeon fire off a new Olympic record in the women’s 50m freestyle.

The 27-year-old Australian put down a time of 24.00 to claim the top seed among a loaded field which included the reigning Olympic champion Pernille Blume of Denmark and fellow Aussie teammate Cate Campbell. McKeon’s time in this final sliced .02 off of her own Olympic Record of 24.02 set during the prelims.

McKeon’s time here is approaching the Australian record of 23.78, a time C1 logged in 2018 at that year’s Commonwealth Games. With one more round to go, we’ll see if McKeon, who has already taken 100m bronze here and 100m free gold, has enough left in the tank to top the podium.

She has been under 24.00 before, owning a lifetime best of 23.93 from this year’s Australian Olympic Trials. That previous outing pegged the Griffith University star as the 7th fastest woman in history. In terms of her 24.00 field-leading effort this morning, McKeon’s time sits just outside the top 25 performances ever.