Kaylee McKeown

Kaylee Rochelle McKeown is an Australian swimmer born on 12 July 2001. A multiple Olympic gold medalist, she holds a record ten individual backstroke titles across the Olympic Games and World Aquatics Championships. McKeown is the reigning Olympic champion in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke. She holds world records in the long course and short course 200 metre backstroke, and previously held world records in the long course 50 metre backstroke as well as the long course and short course 100 metre backstroke.

At 15 years old, McKeown joined her older sister Taylor on the Australian Dolphins swim team. She trains with the Griffith University swim group under coach Michael Bohl. Her early international career included competing at the 2016 Junior Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Hawaii, where she earned gold in the 200 metre backstroke and bronze in the 100 metre backstroke. In 2017, she placed fourth in the 200 metre backstroke at the World Aquatics Championships and received a silver relay medal for swimming in the mixed medley relay heats. She earned her first senior individual international medal, a silver in the 200 metre backstroke, at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships.

McKeown set her first world record in 2020 in the short course 200 metre backstroke at the Australian Championships. At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she won gold medals in the 100 metre backstroke, the 200 metre backstroke, and the 4×100 metre women's medley relay. She became the first Australian woman to win an Olympic backstroke event.

Her international success continued at the 2022 World Short Course Championships, where she won gold in the 100 metre backstroke, 200 metre backstroke, and 4×50 metre medley relay, along with silver in the 4×100 metre medley relay and bronze in the 200 metre individual medley. In 2023, she set a long course 200 metre backstroke world record at the NSW State Open Championships. Later that year, she swept the 50, 100, and 200 metre backstroke titles at the World Aquatics Championships. McKeown also won the overall 2023 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup by sweeping the backstroke events across all three legs in Berlin, Athens, and Budapest, during which she established world records in the 50 metre and 100 metre backstroke.

At the 2024 Paris Olympics, McKeown repeated her gold medal victories in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke, setting Olympic records in both events. She became the first woman to win both backstroke titles at two consecutive Olympic Games. Additionally, she won silver in the 4×100 metre medley relay, bronze in the 200 metre individual medley, and bronze in the mixed 4×100 metre medley relay. At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, she set championship records while winning gold in both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke events.

McKeown was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2022. World Aquatics named her the Best Female Swimmer of the Year in 2023. Her honours also include the 2023 Australian Institute of Sport Female Able-Athlete of the Year, as well as Swimming Australia's Olympic Program Swimmer of the Year awards in 2024 and 2025.