Swim star McKeown on cusp of Olympic greatness: coach

"Everyone, kind of, always puts the Olympics as this big, kind of, thing," the Australian ace says.

"For me, I have just learned that it's a pool in a different city ... it's just me diving in and doing what I can do best."

McKeown isn't looking at the bigger picture ahead of the Paris Olympics.

But her coach Michael Bohl does. And he sees a potential all-time Olympic legend.

"She's still finding a way but she's got a lot more years I think ahead of her," Bohl said of the 23-year-old.

"She's only still very young ... she's got at least another (Olympic) cycle left in her if she wants to.

"You can just see her just continuing to improve over the next four years. She has just got so many events that she could do."

McKeown enters Paris as defending champion in the 100m and 200m backstroke.

She has added the 200m medley to her program - and holds the year's fastest time in the gruelling event.

Fellow swimmer Shane Gould, at the 1972 Munich Games, is the only Australian to win three individual gold medals at a single Olympics. 

McKeown will also race medley relays in Paris and could equal Dolphins teammate Emma McKeon's four golds (two from relays) in Tokyo three years ago.

Bohl believes McKeown could also be world-class in the 200m and 400m freestyle, perhaps also the 400m medley.

"She has got a lot of different things that she can target," he said.

"She likes the variety of doing different things and having those different challenges."

Bohl's swimmers have medalled at every Olympics since 2008 in Beijing.

McKeown joined the master coach in early 2022 and they speak glowingly of each other, though Bohl said McKeown's fearless public game face belied an athlete's angst.

"She is a bit of an anxious person," Bohl said.

"It's just trying to keep her calm.

She just wants to do so well, it's just trying to keep her as calm as you can in that environment.

"We connect quite well. I coached her sister for a while, Taylor, and I know the family quite well and spending time with people you get to know them better.

"So it's just knowing what buttons to push.

"Lifting her up when she's down and then when she gets too cocky, I will bring her back down again. Just keeping her level."

Bohl believes McKeown's Olympic defence rests in the mental, not physical.

"She has just got to be ready," he said.

"It's handling the environment.

"We always talk about the Olympics being that unpredictable environment and there's so much going on, it's chaotic.

"And the people that are able to keep the calmness and level-headed when that situation is around you are the people that get the best of themselves there.

"That's the battle in my mind, it's the mental challenge, it's not the physical challenge.

"Being in an environment where everyone knows it's once every four years, it's difficult, it's not easy to get those great results."

McKeown has dominated her discipline since taking American Regan Smith's 100m backstroke world record three years ago.

But Smith had been lurking and the 22-year-old from Lakeville, Minnesota reclaimed the benchmark at the last month's US Olympic trials.

"World records, we know they get broken," Swimming Australia's head coach Rohan Taylor said.

"It's not a surprise for me. Regan Smith is a world class athlete, 2019 she burst on the scene and has been exceptional ever since.

"Kaylee came in to that space as well ... so it's not like a surprise.

"With Kaylee, she said it at trials, wherever she goes in (ranked) - first, second, third, fourth - it doesn't matter to her.

"She is going to race."

And McKeown loves a good race.

"The better the sport is, the more it brings out in individuals," said McKeown, who still owns the two fastest 200m backstroke times ever.

"I'm expecting world records to be broken ... it makes me better as an athlete and that's all that I can really ask for.

"This rivalry has always been there but it's no different to me racing anybody else in the world."

Coach Bohl said McKeown's delight in a scrap was among her champion qualities.

"She would have learned a lot from the last Olympics she competed in," he said of Tokyo, when McKeown's backstroke double came with a women's 4x100m medley relay gold and mixed 4x100m medley bronze.

"She was much younger then and less experienced."

McKeown said her Tokyo version was vastly different to her Paris edition.

"As you get older, you grow and you learn more," she said.

"From the last Olympics to this Olympics, I've learned a lot and I've grown a lot ... I'm more mature and more in control of my emotions."

Australian Associated Press