Swimming great Emma McKeon makes call on Olympic future

Preparing for her third Olympic campaign, all-time great Emma McKeon has made a shock call about her future.

Swimming superstar Emma McKeon, who is chasing history at this year’s Paris Olympics, has made a call on her future in the pool.

Australia’s most decorated Olympian, McKeon will compete in her third Games in Paris in July this year.

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The 29-year-old boasts an astonishing five gold medals, two silvers and four bronze medals from the Rio and Tokyo Olympics,

Predominantly a freestyler, McKeon has the most medals for Australia and sits level with Ian Thorpe for the most gold medals.

Whatever McKeon achieves in Paris, she has made a call about her Olympic future.

“I think swimming will always be a part of my life and has been for my whole life so far,” McKeon told the official Games website, Olympics.com.

“But this will definitely be my last Olympics, so I’m excited for that.

“Success for me in Paris would be to swim faster than I ever have before.”

This became a familiar sight during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

McKeon only narrowly missed out on a spot at the London Games in 2012 as a 17-year-old.

The Wollongong product then snared one gold, two silvers and a bronze in Brazil before stunning the world with four more golds in Tokyo.

McKeon has also just celebrated her two-year anniversary with fellow swimmer and former pop star Cody Simpson.

She took some time off after the Tokyo Games, but then found fresh motivation to continue on for another Olympic cycle.

“My motivation definitely goes up and down,” she said. “But I’ve learnt over the years you can’t really rely on motivation to get you up every morning.

“It’s more about discipline and that’s something I’ve grown more and more over the years in swimming.

McKeon and Cody Simpson have been dating for two years. Photo: Instagram

McKeon showing the uniform Australian swimmers will wear in Paris. Picture: Dan Peled/NCA NewsWire

“It’s just having my goals in mind and just being disciplined in knowing what I have to do to achieve those goals.

“But I think post-Tokyo, the thing that kept me going was that I felt like I had more to give and I felt like I could go faster and do better.

“So that’s kind of what brought me back to the pool.”

McKeon, who has also set a swag of world records and boasts a staggering 14 Commonwealth Games gold medals, is targeting the Australian Olympic trials in June before her assault on history in Paris the following month.

And she is confident she can swim faster than ever before.

“I know how hard I have to work and I know how hard I worked leading into Tokyo,” she said.

“And to stay at that level, you need to work even harder than that. So I think just knowing that in myself, that’s how I can keep improving.”