Kaylee McKeown

Kaylee McKeown fell 0.82sec shy of two golds in an hour 2:05.60 victory in the 200m backstroke and then silver behind Summer McIntosh in 200IM.

McKeown’s victory ahead of Canadian Kylie Masse, on 2:07.81, also marked a double success, the same pair having finished in that order in the 100m yesterday. In the men’s 50m backstroke New Zealand’s Andrew Jeffcoat took gold in 24.65 ahead of 100m champion Pieter Coetze, of South Africa, on 24.77, the bronze to Canadian Javier Acevedo in 24.97. Splitting hairs, the Australian had the edge on McIntosh in the Commonwealth duel of doubles: McKeon claimed her first Commonwealth backstroke crowns in Games records, while McIntosh broke the 400IM Games record but could not quite get to the 2:08.21 standard set by England’s Siobhan-Marie O’Connor in 2014. In a potential sign of a Paris-Olympics clash to come, as McKeown ponders whether to add the short medley to her target list topped by the defence of the Olympic 100 and 200m backstroke title at the 2024 Games, the Australia took silver in 2:09.52, with England’s Abbie Wood racing home to bronze in 2:10.68. McIntosh thwarted McKeown’s double ambitions with a 2:08.70 triumph in the 200m medley to become the first Canadian to claim the medley double at the Commonwealth Games since Leslie Cliff in 1974. Kaylee McKeown fell 0.82sec shy of two golds in an hour at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre this evening, the Australian following a dominant 2:05.60 victory in the 200m backstroke with a swift return to the fray and a battle with 15-year-old Canadian Summer McIntosh in the 200m medley.