World swimming championships: Emma McKeon Australia’s pool MVP

The multi-talented Emma McKeon is fast becoming the most valuable swimmer in the Australian team.

Sweden’s gold medal winner Sarah Sjostrom, front, Australia's Emma McKeon and Japan’s Runa Imai across the pool. Picture: AP.

The multi-talented Emma McKeon is fast becoming the most valuable swimmer in the Australian team.

Two days into the world championships in Budapest she was Australia’s only multiple medallist, with two silver medals, and she was only one third of the way through her six-event program.

Australia’s most-decorated Olympian in Rio last year, where she won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals on debut, 23-year-old McKeon has moved to a higher plane this year, as she demonstrated by setting a new national record to win the silver medal in the 100m butterfly yesterday.

McKeon’s time of 56.18sec makes her the fourth fastest 100m butterflyer in history and she is now eyeing off a sub-56 second swim which would put her in the absolutely elite company of the past two Olympic gold medallists in the event Sarah Sjostrom (2016) and Dana Vollmer (2012).

The Swedish sensation Sjostrom retained her world title in a near world record of 55.53secs yesterday, 24 hours after smashing the 100m freestyle world record leading off her nation’s 4x100m freestyle relay.

McKeon faces what is arguably the toughest competition of any swimmer in her three individual events this week. She runs into either Sjostrom (100m freestyle and butterfly) or Katie Ledecky (200m freestyle), the top two female swimmers in the world, at every turn.

But where others might be deflated by that prospect, McKeon is thriving.

“You want to have tough people in your event because it lifts you and inspires you and makes you push harder and train harder and want to be up with them,’’ she said. “It’s a good thing, I think.’’ McKeon, who hails from Wollongong but trains in Brisbane, credited a more relaxed attitude to major competition and the inclusion of more 200m butterfly work in her training for her improvement this year

“I think doing those 200 flys has definitely helped my back end because last night I was half a second quicker on the back end than I had ever done before so it’s definitely helped me,’’ she said.

“This is the least nervous I’ve ever been and it mostly comes down to I’m happy, I’m enjoying what I’m doing and I’ve loved being over in Europe for the last two months.

“This is how I want to approach my races now. I might come over next year and do some more of this kind of racing because it’s definitely helped me this year.’’

Her coach at the St Peters Western club Michael Bohl agrees that the European tour, where McKeon has regularly race Sjostrom and other leading competitors, has done wonders for a swimmer identified in her early teens as a future champion.

The daughter of an Olympian (Ron McKeon) and a Commonwealth Games swimmer (Susie Woodhouse), sister of an Olympian (David McKeon) and the niece of an Olympic medallist (Rob Woodhouse), she has always had the raw talent but has taken her time to embrace her destiny.

“She still is pretty shy and guarded but I think she’s coming out of her shell a little bit and everyone is different,’’ Bohl said.

“She wasn’t successful at all in Kazan (the 2015 world titles) and that was really the light bulb moment.

“She realised she had to make a few changes and become a bit more resilient and a little bit stronger in the gym and there have been a whole lot of contributions from a whole lot of different things have made a difference for her.’’ As a swimmer and a personality, McKeon is most often compared with dual Olympic champion Susie O’Neill, another shy teenager who blossomed into a world-beater and combined freestyle and butterfly with success.

Bohl said McKeon had all the qualities he could want in a swimmer. “She’s got great (body) shape, she’s got a great pedigree, she’s got beautiful technique, she’s got natural speed, she’s got pretty good endurance, she just ticks all the boxes and I think you just have to be patient and she’s been really patient,’’ Bohl said.

Finally it seems that McKeon’s time has come.