Australian star swimmer Kaylee McKeown secured her missing backstroke world record at the Long Course World Cup in Budapest. The Olympic champion beat Chinese Liu Xiang’s record from 2018 by twelve hundredths over 50 m in 26.86 seconds.
McKeown has held the 100 m world record on the Olympic 50 m track since 2021, and the 22-year-old set the current 200 m record last March. At the 2023 World Cup in Fukuoka, McKeown won gold in the 50, 100 and 200 m, and at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo he won gold in the 100 and 200 m – the 50 m backstroke is not Olympic.