Kaylee McKeown surges forward of Regan Smith on ultimate day in Carmel

Kaylee McKeown returned to the highest step of the rostrum on Sunday (12 October), clocking 1:58.86 to win the ladies’s 200m backstroke forward of Team USA’s Regan Smith (2:00.07) on the 2025 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup in Carmel, Indiana.

The five-time Olympic champion was the one swimmer to interrupt the two-minute mark, setting a private greatest and a brand new Australian and Oceanian brief course report.

The win represented a return to kind for the Australian backstroke specialist after a stunning loss to long-time rival Smith within the girls’s 100m backstroke a day earlier.

While the 2 had locked horns on quite a few events all through their careers, Mckeown hadn’t misplaced to the seven-time Olympic medallist since 2019. Nonetheless, she appeared unfazed as she settled within the blocks on Sunday.

Powering forward of the sphere in a time simply shy of the World Cup report, she touched the wall greater than a second earlier than Smith, who reached the wall in a time of 2:00.07 to assert second.

For some time, it seemed as if rising star Charlotte Crush would possibly really be the one to disclaim McKeown.

The younger swimmer seemed robust by way of the midway mark, however started to fade within the second a part of the race. She was finally handed by McKeown and Smith, however held her personal to complete third in a time of 2:02.28.

“Being short course, I really have to work on my strengths, and that’s the swim,” McKeown advised broadcasters after the race. “My coach will be pretty disappointed to know that I was three kicks off my last wall, but I got to do what I got to do.”

She was the second Australian swimmer to face atop the rostrum, after Lani Pallister clocked 8:02.02 to win the ladies’s 800m freestyle earlier within the night.