IAS Graduate and current golden girl of the Australian swim team but there was a time Wollongong swim star Emma McKeon just wanted to do normal teenage things. The 20-year-old IAS Graduate was the standout choice for the Illawarra Mercury Sportsperson of the Year following her six-medal haul – four of them gold – at this year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Her gold medals in the 200 metres freestyle, and as one leg of the world-record-breaking 4x100m relay team, were highlights of the Games for an at times maligned national team. But they could very easily not have happened. Today McKeon’s Olympic dream is very much alive, but three years ago it seemed too far away when she failed to make the London team. With years of sacrifice seemingly amounting to nothing, McKeon walked away from the pool with no plans to return. “I just missed out on London and was very disappointed,” McKeon said. “I knew I wanted to go to the Olympics but, after missing London, I didn’t want to face another four years [until Rio]. I was still at school at that time and I felt like I was missing out on a lot of things. “Swimming takes a lot of hours in the pool, two hours in the morning, an hour in the gym and another two hours in the pool in the afternoon and I just wanted to do the normal teenage things. “I gave it away for about six months. I’ve swum since I was a little kid, so it was the longest time I’d been out of the pool. Looking back I wasn’t really missing out on anything, it was just in my head.” While life out of the pool didn’t offer all she’d expected, life in it would eventually deliver in spades in Glasgow, where she was Australia’s best-performed athlete with her four gold medals. “I really wasn’t expecting to come away with what I did,” McKeon said. “I wasn’t ever really thinking about the medals or places, I was more focused on my own times and what I wanted to achieve there. “I had quite a big program. I’d never done that many events before. “You’ve just got to take each race one at a time and not focus on any of the others, you’ve got to stay in the present. I think focusing on that helped me a lot, rather than putting too much pressure on myself in terms of those results.” It was not the first time a McKeon has lit up a Commonwealth Games pool. Her father and long-time coach Ron brought back his own swag of five medals (three gold, a silver and bronze) from the 1978 Edmonton Games, while mum Susie McKeon (nee Woodhouse) also represented Australia at the 1982 Brisbane Games. Brother David — Australia’s third fastest 400-metre swimmer behind only Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett — also picked up his own silver medal in Glasgow. With the siblings two of the shining lights in the Australian swim team, stories about the rich bloodlines are prolific but McKeon says the only pressure she has ever felt is self-imposed. “I don’t feel I have anything to live up to,” McKeon said. “My parents and family are proud of me whatever I’m doing and just want me to be happy in swimming. There’s no pressure through any of it. “I’ve never been forced into anything, it’s always been on my own terms. I think that’s important for any athlete.” It’s why father and daughter agreed — prior to Glasgow — that a change of coach was needed to take her to the next level. It was decided that Vince Raleigh’s Chandler Aquatic squad in Brisbane would be her new base. McKeon said leaving her father, the only coach she’d ever known, and her home town of Wollongong was a necessary step out of her comfort zone. “Dad always said eventually I would have to move on to another coach,” she said. “I’d never had another full-time coach, so this year I decided it was time. I was definitely nervous to go but I was keen to try something new and take my swimming to the next level. I think it was a good decision. “It allowed me to grow up a bit more living by myself and I’m really enjoying my time living and training in Brisbane.” She said having David — her roommate in Brisbane — along for the ride keeps them both focused. “It can be challenging at times but it’s good to have the support from my brother,” she said. “We both do the same sport and have the same goals but we’re different sort of athletes. “He needs to be fully focused on swimming but I like to have other distractions apart from swimming, which I think helps me a lot.” McKeon’s haul was part of a 57-medal tally for the Australian swim team in Glasgow, a relief after the team produced a solitary gold medal — in the women’s 4x100m relay — at the London Olympics. The so-called “failure” in London nearly a decade after Australia’s golden era of the early to mid-2000s ensures there will be plenty of pressure on the team come Rio. McKeon is aware of the scrutiny the team will always be under but said critics of the team’s performance don’t see the whole picture. “I don’t feel that much pressure but you do hear a lot in the media about the swim team not winning enough medals or not winning gold and ‘only’ getting silver but you can’t control what other people say,” she said “Everyone’s out there doing their best and training so hard every day, so I don’t think people can complain. If you’re sitting at home watching you only see that side of it, you don’t see all the hours put in behind the scenes in the pool every day. “With the sprint events being so close, and I think they’re getting closer and closer, the millisecond margin is so small. It’s really hard to win.” Winning is precisely what McKeon plans to do at next year’s world championships in Russia but it’s Rio that looms largest on the horizon. “Everyone wants to win an Olympic gold medal,” she said. “Ever since I was young watching the 2000 Olympics I knew that that’s what I wanted to do. “There’s things in between but for swimmers it’s every four years that we aim for. “The last year’s definitely been a successful year for me and I’ve done a lot of improving, so as long as I keep working hard and keep enjoying what I’m doing, hopefully I can get close.” First published in the
