McKeon admits weight of pressure at Games

OLYMPIC gold medallist Emma McKeon has opened up about how she worried she was not meeting public expectation at the Commonwealth Games.

McKeon headed into the Gold Coast Games as Australia’s most successful swimmer of the past two years and while she won four gold medals on the Coast, she was below her best after treatment for a shoulder injury sapped her of strength.

McKeon trains at Griffith University on the Gold Coast and was also well aware of the expectations fans had of her ahead of the Games.

“In the back of my mind, I knew that people would be thinking (I should be doing better), or expecting people to think that kind of thing,” McKeon said.

After winning six medals at last year’s world championships, McKeon headed into 2018 on a high but a shoulder injury hampered her preparations and a cortisone injection before the Games weakened the joint before the meet.

“The cortisone definitely helped it but I feel like it weakened it at the same time,” said McKeon, whose Games performances also pre-qualified her for the Pan Pacific Games in Tokyo in August. “I just didn’t feel strong or powerful.

“I need that. I’m the kind of swimmer who feels the water a lot, I think maybe because I focus on my technique.

“So I need that and it was frustrating not to feel that, especially going into an event where you’ve got to perform.”

McKeon won the 100m butterfly and shared in three relay gold at the Commonwealth Games, but was upstaged by rising Aussies stars Ariarne Titmus, in her pet 200m freestyle, and Laura Taylor in the 200m butterfly, winning bronze in both events.

“I don’t think it affected my performance but it definitely played on my mind a lot,” she said.

“Usually I don’t notice or feel any external pressures but I think the fact that it was the Comm Games were here, ratcheted that up a bit.”