Kaylee McKeown into backstroke ultimate at world swimming titles as Alex Perkins wins bronze

Australia’s five-time Olympic gold medallist Kaylee McKeown has arrange a showdown with US rival Regan Smith within the ladies’s 100 metres backstroke ultimate on the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.

McKeown and world-record holder Smith went to head-to-head in Monday evening’s semifinals, with the American narrowly profitable in a time of 58.21 seconds.

After the race, McKeown — who swam 58.44 — revealed she didn’t need to swim the race.

“I didn’t actually want to do the 100 at this meet,” she stated.

“I just wanted to come in and do the relays and the 200 backstroke, so [I’m] putting myself out there for a little bit. Good to get the monkey off my back.”

That monkey was the stress McKeown felt she was placing on herself, in addition to the media’s expectations.

“I don’t really care if I come first [or] if come last, I just want to find love for the sport again,” McKeown stated.

McKeown accomplished the 100-200m backstroke double on the Paris Olympics simply months after Smith broke the Queenslander’s world report on the US trials.

She stated the expertise was overwhelming.

“Off the back of Paris, I just found I was getting a bit consumed with the pressure and the nerves, not only [what] the media circulates, but [what] I put on myself,” she stated.

“So, I’m really just taking this year to get back into it, find my love for the sport again, because I don’t ever want to lose that.”

Asked whether or not she was succeeding in that mission to regain her love, McKeown responded: “Absolutely.”

McKeown stated she had benefited from making adjustments in her private life.

“I’ve moved back to the Sunshine Coast now and it’s been the best move that I could have done for myself,” she stated.

“I’m the happiest I’ve been outside the sport for a really, really long time and hopefully maybe not this year, but next year it will start showing in my swimming, too.”

Not that her swimming is precisely dangerous, quite it’s simply not at a world-record degree simply but.

“I think it would be boring if there wasn’t a rivalry [with Smith],” McKeown stated.

“It’s the reason that swimming becomes competitive. That’s all I’ve really got to say on that.”

McKeown wouldn’t be drawn on her ambition for the 100m backstroke ultimate, a race she didn’t need to swim.

“I don’t care what anyone’s telling me. I’m going to be really, really stubborn with this,” McKeown stated.

“I don’t care what you guys [media] want to put on me. I’m just here to have a good time and have fun and, like I said, if that’s coming last, if that’s coming first, I’m here for a good time.”

Perkins makes podium

It was a extra subdued evening for Australia in Singapore after the double gold success of Sunday evening.

Australia’s solely medal was a bronze to Alex Perkins within the ladies’s 100m butterfly.

Perkins was third in a time of 56.33 to complete behind US world report holder Gretchen Walsh, who set a championship mark of 54.73 within the ultimate.

The bronze was Perkins’s first particular person medal at a World Aquatics Championships.

“I couldn’t be happier, honestly,” she stated.

“I tried not to expect anything going into that final. I just wanted to put my best foot forward and be proud of what I’ve done.

“Coming away with a medal is only a bonus.”

Walsh had been battling food poisoning and had pulled out of the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay final the previous evening.

But on Monday she powered home to record the second-fastest time in history.

Perkins, swimming in lane three next to Walsh (lane four), said she did not dare to dream that the American great’s upset stomach might give her an outside chance of victory.

“No, she’s [Walsh] an unimaginable athlete. I knew she’d be within the race and wanting that particular person world title, and I believe that lifts the entire subject,” Perkins stated.

“So I’m actually pleased she was there and I obtained to race alongside her. She’s simply unimaginable.

“[I] had a little chat to her in marshalling. She’s lovely and humble.”

Perkins, who turned 25 on Sunday, debuted for Australia on the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

She has received silver medals in relays on the Olympics and World Aquatics Championships as a warmth swimmer.

Perkins stated she had all the time seen herself as extra of a coach than a racer.

“I just feel like I trained at a level that was higher than I was racing, but now I really feel it’s starting to reflect in my racing a little bit more,” Perkins stated.

Canadian Summer McIntosh made it two golds from as many occasions, profitable the ladies’s 200m particular person medley.

McIntosh triumphed in a time of two:06.69, which is a second slower than the world report she set on the Canadian trials.

But it was nearly 2 seconds sooner than American Alex Walsh, who completed second.

Eighteen-year-old McIntosh is contesting 5 particular person races and two relays in Singapore.

Michael Phelps is the one swimmer to have received 5 particular person gold medals at a single version of the World Aquatic Championships, a feat he achieved when the occasion was held in Melbourne in 2007.

After claiming gold within the males’s 4x100m relay, Australia’s Flynn Southam (1:45.80) narrowly missed out on a spot within the ultimate of the boys’s 200m freestyle, ending tenth quickest throughout the 2 semifinals.