‘King’ Kyle Chalmers out to reassert dominance over princeling upstarts at swimming worlds | Swimming

It is uncommon to search out such a adorned athlete – one with a regal moniker, no much less – who nonetheless thrives on being the underdog. Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, “King Kyle”, has gained nearly all the pieces there’s to win in worldwide swimming. Yet 12 months after 12 months he returns, one way or the other nonetheless the underdog, one way or the other able to spring one other upset.

In latest days, on the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, it has been extra of the identical. On Sunday, Chalmers anchored Australia’s relay workforce to an surprising gold within the males’s 4×100m freestyle relay. On Thursday, he’ll go once more within the particular person occasion – the two-lap freestyle blitz, one other alternative for Chalmers to reign supreme. Arise, King Kyle, as soon as extra?

The trendy Chalmers story started almost a decade in the past, on the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Just 18, the boy from Port Lincoln certified for the Games at trials alongside more-fancied compatriot Cameron McEvoy. Chalmers had pedigree – he had gained three gold medals on the junior world championships a 12 months earlier than – however this was the blue riband occasion of the Olympic swim meet, with a stacked subject.

No one gave Chalmers an opportunity. And but he shocked teammate McEvoy and the swimming world to the touch first in a exceptional upset, the youngest male swimmer to win a person gold since Ian Thorpe in 2000. In lower than 48 seconds, a world swim star was born.

The 9 years that adopted have been glittering. Chalmers has gained seven Commonwealth Games gold medals, six world titles and eight extra Olympic medals. Now 27, Chalmers has established himself as a mainstay of the Australian Dolphins, the main gentle of the squad’s male contingent.

But one way or the other, Chalmers has all the time positioned himself because the underdog.

In half it’s due to the accidents which have plagued his profession. From bulged discs to a degenerative backbone, from shoulder issues to coronary heart surgical procedure, there was a prolonged checklist of illnesses. Chalmers has endured countless cortisone injections and plasma remedy; at one level he even damage himself whereas mendacity on a sofa (after a stint working as a landscaper, he mentioned his physique was not used to the remainder). “And that’s just the physical side of things,” he mentioned in Tokyo, acknowledging the psychological challenges that include such exertions.

It might, partially, be defined by Chalmers all the time doing issues his personal manner – considering swapping swimming for a profession within the AFL, or working part-time as a tradie for much of his career.

Certainly, partially it’s his mentality. Chalmers thrives together with his again in opposition to the wall, the doubt of others appears to gasoline him. At the Tokyo Olympics, this reporter made a joking reference that the ladies had been carrying the Dolphins to glory – was it now the boys’s flip? To Chalmers, it was no joke.

On Sunday, on the newest version of the world titles, the Australian males’s freestyle relay workforce weren’t anticipated to win gold. The Dolphins had gained the occasion simply as soon as over the previous decade; the Americans have been ascendant, profitable the previous three Olympic golds.

But Chalmers all the time lifts for relays – it’s no shock a majority of his world and Olympic medals have been in workforce disciplines. It has so usually been the scene of his heroic feats. And so once more it was on Sunday; the Australians had been third on the last changeover, earlier than Chalmers powered residence with a fearsome 46.53 break up to complete excessive of the American rivals.

King Kyle as soon as extra. But after the win, the underdog mentality was once more on show. “I think it’s a huge upset, and we prove that time and time again,” Chalmers said. “Every year you read the articles and people write us off. We have a point to prove and swim with a chip on our shoulder a little bit, to be honest with you.”

How many six-time world champions, nine-time Olympic medallists swim with a chip on their shoulder?

On Thursday, Chalmers will contest the ultimate in his pet 100m freestyle occasion, after qualifying by way of the heats and semi-final on Wednesday. It is shaping as much as be a blockbuster conflict. Chalmers gained gold on the final main world championships, two years in the past in Japan, however the Australian was blown away by younger Chinese rival Pan Zhanle on the Paris Olympics, who shaved virtually half a second off his personal world file.

In Singapore, Chalmers will go face to face with Romanian prodigy David Popovici and America’s Jack Alexy, who certified quickest. Popovic is simply 20; Alexy is 22. Despite solely being 27, Chalmers is the sector’s elder statesman, contesting his fifth world championships. Pan, one other member of the subsequent era at 20, is a shock absence from the ultimate, after a lacklustre semi-final exhibiting.

Despite Chalmers’ glittering profession, he has solely as soon as been world champion within the particular person 100m freestyle – in 2023 – and as soon as on the Olympic degree, again in 2016 (silver in Paris behind Pan adopted a heartbreaking silver in Tokyo, six one-hundredths of a second from victory).

Will this be the second King Kyle reasserts his dominance over a subject of princeling upstarts? Could Olympic gold observe in Los Angeles in three years’ time? Chalmers has even floated the opportunity of swimming on to Brisbane 2032, significantly following the addition of the 50m butterfly to the Olympic programme.

He might not be the favorite on Thursday night time. But that has by no means stopped Kyle Chalmers earlier than.