Kaylee McKeown visits Pioneer swimming centre, inspires Mackay athletes

Holding a gold medal gives everyone goosebumps, and the junior swimmers at a Mackay pool were lucky enough to experience that when an Olympic champion visited.

For most junior athletes, winning a gold medal at the Olympics is the absolute dream.

For Maddi Daniel, holding one was good enough. For now.

The seven year old won a statewide competition to meet Olympian Kaylee McKeown, whose gold medal may have inspired Maddi to start her own Olympic journey.

“I was very happy when I met Kaylee, it was the first time I saw a gold medal in my life and it was a bit heavy,” she said.

“Kaylee looked like all the pictures and TV that I have seen of her in the Olympics.

“I want to go to the Olympics in gymnastics, I train with Pure at the Showgrounds every Wednesday.”

Three-time gold medallist Kaylee McKeown and Maddi Daniel at pioneer swimming pool. North Mackay Picture: Michaela Harlow

McKeown, who won three gold and a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, said she love seeing the kids’ reactions to the medallions.

“I’m a shy person, I don’t enjoy a lot of media, but I much prefer to go to swimming clubs and see the kids face-to-face and give them a sense of what I am as a person and what the sport means to me,” she said.

“I love handing out the medal and showing kids what they could have one day.

“I’ve told them a lot of hard work goes into it, it’s not just fun and games, you’ve got to put in 100 per cent if not 110 per cent.”

Maddi Daniel and Three-time gold medallist Kaylee McKeown at pioneer swimming pool. North Mackay Picture: Michaela Harlow

Despite being Australia’s golden child after the Tokyo Olympics, McKeown said she did not like being branded anything different because of her success in the pool.

“I think people see athletes as being completely different, but really we’re just normal people trying to make our lives a little bit different,” she said.

“I don’t like to pass myself off as a different person, part of me is dedicated to the pool, that’s just who I am.

“I do have a whole other level of respect (for Olympians), just seeing the dedication and the process that goes into the Olympics and walking away with medals, there’s a whole lot of hard work that you don’t see.”

Three-time gold medallist Kaylee McKeown and Maddi Daniel at pioneer swimming pool with the swimming club friends. North Mackay Picture: Michaela Harlow