McKeown Continues Siege With 58.31 100 Backstroke

2022 VICTORIAN OPEN

• Friday, February 18th – Sunday, February 20th
• Melbourne Sports Centre (MSAC)
• LCM (50m)
• Psych Sheet
• SwimSwam Preview
• Results
• Day 1 Recap

20-year-old multi-Olympic medalist  Kaylee McKeown already wowed here at this 2022 Vic Open, firing off a 200m back outing of 2:04.64 on day one. That mark was faster than what she produced in Tokyo to top the podium at those postponed Olympic Games.

For day two here, the Griffith-based swimmer threw down another stunner, this time in the form of a 58.31 100m backstroke.

After establishing herself as the top-seeded swimmer of the morning with a prelims result of 1:00.10, McKeown unleashed splits of 28.90/29.41 to get to the wall in 58.31. And, she did so essentially by herself, as the next closest swimmer logged a mark of 1:03.65

For McKeown, she snagged gold in Tokyo in this 1back sprint with a new Olympic Record of 57.47. As such, her result here in Melbourne fell within one second of that podium-topper and also ranks among McKeown’s top 10 personal performances.

Although McKeown’s fastest results have come at focus meets, such as the Australian Olympic Trials as well as the Games themselves, the versatile ace is known to have popped off a couple of sub-58 swims in-season.

One occurred in May of last year at the Sydney Open, with McKeown clocking a monster 57.63. Prior to that in December of 2020, McKeown cracked a 57.93 at the Queensland Championships.

Also collecting another piece of hardware here was 34-year-old Holly Barratt of Rockingham. After clinching the 50m fly and 100m free victories on day 1, Barratt also added the 50mf ree title to her collection. Barratt hit the wall in 25.32, after already claiming silver in the 100m fly earlier in the session.

The women’s 100m fly winner was Nunawading’s Kayla Costa, who touched in 59.75 to obtain the 3rd fastest performance of her career. Barratt was next in line in 1:01.09.

Additional Notes:

• 17-year-old William Petric continues to show promise in the men’s 200m IM event, tonight reaching the top of the podium in a time of 2:02.98. After previously owning a lifetime best of 2:03.41 from 2021, last month Petric punched a time of 2:01.78 to take the South Aussie state title.
• Bradley Woodward doubled up on his 50m back from day 1 with a mark of 2:00.11 to also claim the 200m back Vic Open meet title.
• Miami’s Alex Graham found success in the 200m free, beating the field with a time of 1:47.92 as the only man to dip under the 1:50 threshold.
• Multi-class action saw Matthew Levy get it done for gold in the 100m breast, logging 1:23.08. Rowan Crothers was another gold medalist tonight, capturing multi-class gold in the 50m free in 24.12.