Kaylee McKeown Continues Backstroke Dominance; Retains Pacific Rim Swimmer of Year Honors
Her run as the best backstroker in the world has now reached five years. Kaylee McKeown was once again a dominant performer in 2025, overtaking longtime rival Regan Smith to win gold medals in the 100 and 200 backstroke at the Singapore World Championships. McKeown also broke the short course world record in the 200 back on two occasions as she raced on the World Cup circuit.
For those achievements, McKeown has earned the Pacific Rim Female Swimmer of the Year award for the third consecutive year. McKeown was also the World Female Swimmer of the Year in 2023 while earning top-five finishes in that category in 2024 and 2025. Australia has historically dominated this Pacific Rim award, but McKeown is only the fourth swimmer to top the category on at least three separate occasions, joining countrywomen Susie O’Neill (1995, 1998-2000), Leisel Jones (2003, 2005-2006) and Cate Campbell (2013-2014, 2018).
While McKeown has dabbled in individual medley competition in previous years, she focused on backstroke racing in 2025 to great success. In the Worlds final of the 100 back, McKeown turned two tenths behind Smith at the halfway point before sizzling down the stretch with a 29.24 closing split. That allowed her to get to the wall in 57.16, lowering her own Australian record and coming within three hundredths of Smith’s world record. The finish was a virtual repeat of the Paris Olympic final and the 2023 Worlds final, with McKeown overtaking Smith for gold by a small margin while Katharine Berkoff claimed bronze.
Four days later, McKeown was biding her time through the early stages of the 200 back final, saving an incredible 30.83 closing burst for the last length as she pulled ahead to win by more than a second. The 24-year-old Australian clocked 2:03.33, the third-fastest time in history. McKeown concluded her World Championships run by leading off the Australian women’s 400 medley relay, which secured a silver medal.
McKeown would return to international competition in October, traveling to North America to compete in all three stops of the World Cup circuit. She scored seven victories in nine backstroke races during that trip, most notably with her world records in the 200 back in Westmont, Ill., and in Toronto. No one had ever been under 1:58 in the event before the Westmont race where McKeown held off Smith by four hundredths, 1:57.87 to 1:57.91. Both women were under the previous global standard, but McKeown got to keep the mark. Six days later, a nearly-identical situation unfolded as both women broke the world record, but it was McKeown with a masterful time of 1:57.33.
In long course, McKeown’s World Championships times rank her first in the world this year in both the 100 and 200 back, and her top mark of 27.06 in the 50 sat No. 2 globally. Although she did not race the 50 back at this year’s Worlds, she remains the world-record holder in that distance. With that event added to the Olympic program for 2028, McKeown will undoubtedly be a threat to claim gold. She also finished sixth in the world in the 200 IM (2:08.58).
With those accomplishments, McKeown continues to build her case as one of the best backstrokers in history. In Paris, she became the only Australian woman in history to win back-to-back gold medals in two separate swimming events, and she remains the swimmer to beat at the midway point of this quad.