Kaylee McKeown has not ruled out swimming at the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. The five-time Olympic gold medallist told AAP on Monday she will decide her future only after the 2028 Los Angeles Games and only after a long break she says she has earned. The 24-year-old is the world record holder in the 50m and 200m backstroke and the defending champion in both events at next month’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games. She has not yet said whether Brisbane is in her plans, though a Courier Mail essay published on 9 June 2026 made the pull of a home Olympics plain. Glasgow 2026 will be her final Commonwealth Games, the Los Angeles 2028 build is the next checkpoint, and Brisbane sits in the background. AAP distributed the interview on 15 June 2026; Swimming Australia announced the Glasgow squad the same week.
Glasgow Will Be the Last, Brisbane Stays on the Table
McKeown will defend her 100m and 200m backstroke Commonwealth titles in Glasgow from 24 to 29 July 2026, then walk away from the four-yearly event for good. She announced the Glasgow meet would be her last Commonwealth Games in a self-written Courier Mail piece on 9 June 2026. The decision was framed as a cull of a busy calendar, with a single race-by-race goal. Brisbane stayed in the frame as an option, not a plan. She turns 25 on 12 July 2026, two weeks before the first Glasgow heat.
“You never know when it’s going to be your last. The last Commonwealth [Games] could have been my last,” McKeown said. She was firmer on the post-LA pause than on the Brisbane door, telling AAP: “After LA, I’m going to take some time off and probably think about what I want to do.” The same interview added: “I’m not putting something out of the question at all,” in the line that keeps Brisbane in the room.
I would love to be able to represent my country on home soil. I missed out on 2000 [Sydney Olympics]. I was born in 2001, so I missed out on it completely, but you hear about it. You hear about all the greats and just the amount of people that were there to support them. There’s nothing better.
The blockquote above is from Kaylee McKeown, in a written statement distributed by AAP on 15 June 2026.
Five Golds and a Mental Bill
McKeown’s fifth Olympic gold came in the 200m backstroke at the Paris 2024 Games. She had already won the 100m backstroke, and the Paris double made her the first swimmer to defend the 100m and 200m backstroke Olympic titles in back-to-back Games. Only East Germany’s Roland Matthes had done it across genders.
The medals came with a bill she is still paying. In the Courier Mail essay McKeown said the Paris run came at a personal cost, and the year since has shown the cost in public for the first time. She battled depression, changed coaches and clubs, and moved back to the Sunshine Coast to live with her partner, Declan Watson. Another backstroke Olympic champion took the opposite call, and his exit is laid out in Rylov walking away from competitive swimming. The program is now openly different: a sports psychologist, a happiness-over-results pitch, and a tighter competition calendar.
She is choosing to keep her target list narrow, with happiness as the metric. “Happiness is going to be my superpower in 2026,” McKeown wrote in the Courier Mail essay that also named Brisbane as a want rather than a commitment. The Brisbane tease is conditional on the recovery that has to come first. Glasgow is the immediate checkpoint, Los Angeles 2028 is the next, and Brisbane 2032 is the open question behind both.
Mollie O’Callaghan, Cam McEvoy, and Lani Pallister have all spoken publicly about the same post-Paris struggle, the ABC reports. McKeown’s Courier Mail essay is the most concrete of those accounts, and the one that puts a name to the pattern: happiness as a performance tool, not a slogan.
- 5 Olympic gold medals (Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024)
- 9 Olympic medals in total
- 4 individual Olympic gold medals, an Australian record
- 1st woman to defend both the 100m and 200m backstroke Olympic titles
- 1st Australian in any sport to win four individual Olympic golds
The World Records That Frame the Argument
If Brisbane is even a soft target, the records she still owns are the entry fee. She is widely considered the greatest backstroker of all time, and the world marks she still holds are the floor of any comeback argument. The case is built on three current world records and a 100m mark that is no longer hers.
McKeown set the 50m backstroke world record at 26.86 seconds at a World Cup stop in Budapest on 20 October 2023, breaking her own previous mark. She set the 200m backstroke long-course world record at 2:03.14 at the NSW Open Championships in Sydney on 10 March 2023. She also set the 200m backstroke short-course world record at 1:57.33 in Canada on 25 October 2025. She is the former long-course and short-course 100m back world record holder, and the Courier Mail reports she wants the 100m mark back, with a sub-57-second swim as the open target. The full backstroke record and medal tally sits on her full backstroke record and medal tally.
She has won a record 10 individual backstroke titles across the Olympic Games and World Aquatics Championships, the most by any swimmer in the discipline. She is the first woman to hold the 50m, 100m, and 200m backstroke long-course world records at the same time, and the Courier Mail reports the 100m chase is the most concrete of her open goals. She stands 1.75m tall, swims out of Griffith University on the Gold Coast, and works with coach Michael Bohl, who took over from Chris Mooney in late 2021. The setup is the one she returned to after the post-Paris reset.
| Event | Time | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50m backstroke (LC) | 26.86 (WR) | Budapest | 20 October 2023 |
| 200m backstroke (LC) | 2:03.14 (WR) | Sydney | 10 March 2023 |
| 200m backstroke (SC) | 1:57.33 (WR) | Canada | 25 October 2025 |
From Gold Coast Teen to Five-Time Champion
McKeown has been a senior international for nine years. She made her senior debut at the 2017 Budapest World Championships at age 15, finishing fourth in the 200m backstroke, and her first Commonwealth Games came on home soil at the 2018 Gold Coast, where she finished fourth in both the 100m and 200m backstroke in front of an Australian crowd. The Gold Coast stop was also the CWG debut of her older sister Taylor, who would race at Birmingham 2022 alongside her.
She has not lost a major international 100m or 200m backstroke final since. Birmingham 2022 produced the backstroke double in Games records, plus relay golds and a 200m individual medley silver, and the Fukuoka worlds the next year delivered the backstroke treble in a single meet. The Paris 2024 double-double closed the case. McKeown was named Australian flag bearer for the Paris closing ceremony alongside sailor Matt Wearn. The 2026 plan is a slimmer one, with Glasgow and Pan Pac as the two major stops before Los Angeles qualification.
- 2017: senior international debut at Budapest World Championships, age 15, 4th in 200m backstroke.
- 2018: Commonwealth Games debut on the Gold Coast, 4th in 100m and 200m backstroke.
- 2021 (Tokyo 2020): gold in 100m back, 200m back, and 4×100m medley relay; bronze in 4×100m mixed medley.
- 2022: Commonwealth Games double in Birmingham, 100m and 200m backstroke, both in Games records.
- 2023: backstroke treble at the Fukuoka World Championships, 50m, 100m, and 200m gold.
- 2024: backstroke double-double in Paris, the first swimmer to defend both Olympic titles.
Brisbane 2032, in Concrete
The Brisbane Olympics open on 23 July 2032. Swimming will be contested at a new 25,000-seat National Aquatic Centre at Spring Hill, confirmed for the Games in 2025.
The dates land eleven days after McKeown’s 31st birthday. She was born on 12 July 2001. Few swimmers have been in their early thirties and still contesting individual backstroke Olympic titles, and the schedule and venue plan for the home Games sits on the Brisbane Games entry at Brisbane’s 23 July to 8 August window.
McKeown’s case for caring about Brisbane is generational. She was born after the 2000 Sydney Olympics and missed the home Games that Australian swimmers of her parents’ generation still talk about. Brisbane 2032 is a second chance at the moment she never had. Her own framing remains wanting rather than committed, with happiness as the metric and a post-LA break as the prerequisite. The Brisbane question waits until she knows what the post-LA version of her looks like, and AAP has filed it as an open item, not a pledge.
What Comes First in Glasgow
Glasgow 2026 runs from 23 July to 2 August 2026, with swimming contested across six days from 24 to 29 July at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre, the same venue that hosted the 2014 Games. McKeown will defend her 100m and 200m backstroke Commonwealth titles in the city where her sister Taylor made her first senior Australian team. The schedule in Glasgow includes a record 56 events, 14 of them parasport. The full programme, including the backstroke finals McKeown is targeting, is on the six-day Glasgow swimming schedule.
The Pan Pacific Championships follow in the United States in August 2026. The Glasgow stop is the last CWG chapter on the calendar, the Pan Pac stop is the next major meet, and the Los Angeles 2028 clock starts when the plane lands home. McKeown has not committed to anything beyond Glasgow, and the Courier Mail essay is the only public framing of what comes after.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does swimming start at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games?
Swimming runs from 24 to 29 July 2026 at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre, a six-day window inside the wider 23 July to 2 August Glasgow programme. The 2026 edition will feature a record 56 events, including a record 14 parasport events.
What events will Kaylee McKeown contest in Glasgow?
McKeown will defend her 100m and 200m backstroke Commonwealth titles, both won in Games record time at Birmingham 2022. She has not added a third event to her Glasgow program.
How many Olympic gold medals has Kaylee McKeown won?
Five. She won the 100m backstroke, 200m backstroke, and 4×100m medley relay at Tokyo 2020, and successfully defended both the 100m and 200m backstroke at Paris 2024 to complete the Olympic backstroke double-double.
When are the Brisbane 2032 Olympics?
The Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games open on 23 July 2032 and close on 8 August 2032. McKeown will turn 31 eleven days before the opening ceremony.
