Unless everything is perfectly still, H20 just distorts and blurs images so they barely appear as they really are.

Which is just the way Kaylee McKeown likes it.

Despite being one of the world’s best swimmers, McKeown remains an enigma to the sport-obsessed Australian public.

Her spontaneous shaka then F-bomb at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics excluded, McKeown has mostly avoided the intense scrutiny and attention her Dolphins teammates received for their gold medal winning performances.

Unwittingly, that’s cultivated an impression she’s timid and almost ambivalent about her stunning achievements in the pool.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those that know McKeown best can’t stop raving about how she’s one of the hardest-working swimmers they’ve ever seen – driven by a relentless will to succeed.

You won’t have heard that from McKeown’s lips though because she seldom gives interviews, apart from mandatory Q & As on the pool deck after winning another big race.

But as she prepares to add to her list of world titles in Japan, McKeown has provided a rare insight into her private life, revealing her ambitious goals for next year’s Paris Olympics and the events that helped shape her into one of the world’s most dominant swimmers.

Unfulfilled after winning three gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, McKeown switched trainers shortly after her return to Queensland – joining master coach Michael Bohl – and promptly told him about her vision.

“When I sat down with Michael and I said, ‘This is what I do’, I literally said to him, ‘I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder,’” McKeown says.

“I don’t want to go to one Olympic Games, have people know me and never rock up again.”

So far, so good.

If the experts are right, McKeown’s on course to do something really special.

In an era of great Australian swimmers, she might just turn out to be the pick of the bunch, although she’s not taking anything for granted.

Turning 22 just before the world titles, she has already compiled a formidable resume that ranks her among the all-time greats.

Tall and thin and an asthmatic who wears prescription glasses, her appearance provides few obvious clues into how fiercely determined she really is, but that’s a ruse. She and her Tokyo medallist boyfriend Brendon Smith are one of swimming’s new, young power couples.

She is the reigning Olympic champion for 100m and 200m backstroke (her other gold medal at Tokyo was in the women’s medley relay.) McKeown currently holds the world records for both individual backstroke events and is strong favourite to complete the double in Japan after she won the 200m but skipped the 100m at the last world championships.

Seemingly born to swim (her older sister Taylor was a champion breaststroker who won Olympic, world championship and Commonwealth Games medals), what sets McKeown apart is her insatiable lust to keep getting better.

“I think it’s just self-driven. I don’t think that as an athlete I could rock up to the pool and give 80 per cent. That would leave guilt in me,” she says. “I’m putting every day of my life into swimming. What’s the point of rocking up and only doing 80 per cent?

“That’s kind of where my morals lie with training and how I go about my life. But I think that’s also an attribute that my parents have taught me. You don’t get things served to you on a silver platter or gold platter for that matter. You’ve got to work hard to get what you deserve.”

McKeown’s homage to her parents isn’t just lip service because her family is – and always will be – the source of her incessant pursuit of excellence.

In 2020, the year the Tokyo Olympics were supposed to take place, McKeown lost her father Sholto to brain cancer. He was just 53.

Still in her teens, no one would have batted an eyelid if she took a break from the grind of swimming. But that’s not her way.

Instead, she took the road less travelled, dedicating herself to her training with renewed vigour and motivation.

By historical standards, McKeown’s individual performances in Tokyo were staggering. Yet, they were still somewhat underplayed, just because of the sheer number of medals the entire Australian swim team won – nine gold, three silver and nine bronze.

McKeown won four medals in total, but so too did Ariarne Titmus, while Emma McKeon collected seven, a record for any female swimmer from any country at a single Olympics.

Being able to share the spotlight was a blessing for McKeown, who was going through a rollercoaster of emotions at the time.

While the pandemic prevented her mother and sister from accompanying her to Japan, not a day went by when she wasn’t thinking of her family. She has a permanent reminder of her dad on her foot, a tattoo which says: “I will always be with you”, and she spoke about him immediately after she won her first gold medal, saying he had given her “superpowers”.

Two years on, McKeown is still drawing strength from how she was able to handle everything that she encountered in Tokyo.

“I think it goes to show that when you get to a level like an Olympic Games, it’s not what you can physically do, it’s what you can mentally cope with,” she says.

“There were certain instances where I was tired and exhausted and I was lucky enough, my coach at the time, Chris Mooney, was like, ‘You’ve trained a lot harder. You train to be able to race. You don’t need to worry about your body. You just need to make sure that you’re calm and you know that you’re ready to go.’”

That’s easier said than done.

Of all the weapons elite swimmers have in their arsenal, the most valuable is the ability to stay relaxed when the pressure becomes almost unbearable. On the surface, Olympic swimmers may look like the coolest cats in sport, but underneath they are a bundle of nerves.

Everyone has different ways of dealing with their anxieties. Some listen to their favourite songs. Some shadow box or thump their chests. Others just drop to their knees and pray.

“I’ve been at the point of nerves where I’m ready to cry but I’ve learned that nerves are a good thing,” McKeown says.

“It means that my body cares about what it’s about to do, and that’s the way that I really channel that energy.

“I don’t actually listen to music, only what the complex or what people have on their speakers at the pool.

“I kind of just like to soak in the atmosphere around me or talk to the people. If no one wants to talk then I kind of find myself in a bit of a pickle but I enjoy my own company. I live by myself.

“The most stressful part for me is actually walking out on to the pool deck and trying to pick what item of clothing to take off first, because I always feel like I’m rushed to get behind the blocks and get ready to race.

“I kind of like to take my time and relax and all that kind of stuff, but when I’m in the water. It’s kind of just pilot mode.”

McKeown has just inked a two-year agreement to serve as ambassador for Wahl’s new range of women’s grooming products, which include shavers and beauty trimmers.

“In swimming, we’re talking about milliseconds and that can literally come down to the hair on my head or the hair on my arm. So I think it just makes sense,” McKeown says.

Even after winning, the pressure never stops, because Olympic success often brings mixed fortunes. While it represents the peak achievement in the sport, it also means the next step forward may be down.

For all the great champions Australia has produced over more than a century, it’s sobering to realise that only one female swimmer – Dawn Fraser – has ever won the same individual event at successive Olympics.

That’s partly because elite swimmers often have short careers and are always battling younger competitors nipping at their heels.

But complacency also plays a part as the training is gruelling and often boring. That’s again where McKeown differs from most others.

If anything, her success in Tokyo only increased her desire to swim even faster, convincing her to make some bold changes after the worst of the pandemic was over.

Not only did she change coaches, but she also left her family home to set up her own house closer to her new training base.

“There’s been a lot of instances in my life where I’ve had to grow up really quickly,” she says. “It wasn’t something that was a shock to my family, but at some point you’ve got to move out of home and grow your own wings and start flying.

“It’s not just a change in location or coach, it’s your sports staff, psychologists, massage, physio, all of that is changed and that takes time to get used to.

“Hence, it’s taken me a whole year to settle in. I spent two months to find rentals because Covid was still having its effects here and there.

“I’ve finally found my own home now so I’m settled in and I think being settled and calm and relaxed also helps performance in many ways.”

With so many major lifestyle changes, there was never any guarantee McKeown’s performances in the pool would continue on an upward curve.

In a sport where the difference between winning and losing can be decided by tiny fractions of a second, she knew she needed someone to push her to new depths.

“Coming off the back of the Olympics, you do go into a bit of a down phase. I really pushed through that last year and there were times where I was like, ‘Do I really love the sport?’” she says.

“I think Michael Bohl, being the coach that he is, and the amount of talent that he’s had, I put all my trust into him.

“That’s really worked wonders leading into this year. And I think a happy swimmer is always a fast swimmer. I think if you ask any swimmer, they go through phases like, ‘I love swimming, I want to be here.’

“And then sometimes when you go home, that’s the sanctuary. At the moment, my home is my sanctuary. I go to the pool, train hard, I come back to sleep and relax.”

Finding the next goal to pursue was simple enough. The 2024 Olympics was the obvious answer, though she accepts nothing is a given.

“I’ve got to make the team for Paris first. That’s the first goal. And that’s not as easy as what people may think,” she says.

“There’s lots of things that can happen and contribute to not making the Australian team. But, provided I do make the team and I swim the way I would like to in Paris, it’s not going to be easy.

“The American girls, especially Regan (Smith), are swimming very fast at the moment. I know that gold medals aren’t going to come easy. No medal comes easy. So it’s just a matter of training hard, putting in the best performance on the day.”

For someone who spends hours of each day submerged in chlorinated pool water and thinking about her next great challenge, it’s unsurprising that McKeown rarely pauses to think about how far she’s already come.

But there is one brief moment that she allows herself to stare in the mirror – when she’s on the medal podium looking back at the still water where she’s just won.

“I don’t know if they do that deliberately, but for me it’s kind of a reflection of ‘I’ve done the work there so I can stand here,’” she says.

“And this is almost giving back to the people who helped me get here. That’s the way that I kind of look at it.

“Sometimes, you finish a really hard session and you get in your car and drive home and think, ‘Shit, that was actually really cool what I just put my body through.’”

*Kaylee McKeown is an ambassador for Wahl