McKeon creates history

But Aussies slip down the pecking order

Emma McKeon has become the first Australian woman to win six medals at a single world swimming championships after contributing to a bronze medal in the 4 x 100m medley relay on the last night of competition in Budapest.

But the medal tally made for disturbing reading for an Australian. Occasionally we have to accept that England will win the Ashes and the English rugby team will triumph but our superiority in swimming was a given, until now.

A nation that has less than a dozen Olympic pools and is the world’s leading creator of head-up breaststrokers has been more successful at this year’s major championship than one bathed in sunshine most of the year round and, well, swimming in pools.

The final medal tally shows that Britain has achieved its best ever performance at the world titles to finish second behind the United States with four gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

Australia was in eighth place with one gold (Emily Seebohm in the 200m

backstroke), five silver and four bronze for a total of 10.

McKeon ended her campaign with four silver and two bronze medals and said her next ambition was to convert at least one of them to gold.

The previous best tally by an Australian woman was five, shared by Libby Trickett and Alicia Coutts.

McKeon, 23, has drawn even with Ian Thorpe, who also won six medals at the 2001 world championships, and is one shy of Michael Klim’s record of seven from 1998.

“I wasn’t even thinking about medals but I didn’t think I would be on the podium six times this week,’’ she said.

“I think now I will have a break and then get back in the pool and aspire to hopefully change it (her 200m freestyle silver) to a gold in the coming years because that’s what I want to achieve.

“It just motivates me even more because I’ve seen how close I was in that race. I just died in that last little bit. Thinking about that is going to motivate me.’’

World 200m backstroke champion Emily Seebohm led off the Australian relay in her best 100m time of the week (58.53sec), handing off to breaststroker Taylor McKeown, who set her fastest ever split of 1:06.29, before McKeon took her turn (56.78sec).

It was left to injured anchorwoman Bronte Campbell to maintain Australia’s third place under pressure from Canada and Sweden and she fought to keep the team on the podium, stopping the clock in 3:54.29 (a 52.69sec split).

The winning US team set a new world record of 3:51.55, ahead of second-placed Russia (3:53.38). MORE ONLINE Aussie 7 return to 1500m podium