China’s Qin Haiyang, Kaylee McKeown of Australia named male and female swimmers of the year by World Aquatics

[beijingwalker]

China’s Qin Haiyang, Kaylee McKeown of Australia named male and female swimmers of the year by World Aquatics​

• Qin Haiyang and Kaylee McKeown have dominated their respective events, breaking world records along the way.
• Qin holds the men’s 200m breaststroke mark, while McKeown has made history while holding 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke records

Published: 6:00pm, 24 Oct, 2023

China’s Qin Haiyang and Kaylee McKeown of Australia have been named male and female swimmers of the year after dominating their respective disciplines in the pool.

World Aquatics honoured the pair at a ceremony in Budapest, where Qin had been nominated alongside France’s Leon Marchand and Ahmed Hafnaoui of Tunisia, while McKeown was up against Mollie O’Callaghan of Australia and Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.

The event followed the completion of the last World Cup leg of a season during which Qin won the men’s 50m, 100m and 200m breaststroke races in Berlin, Athens and Budapest.

The 24-year-old set World Cup records in each discipline during the Berlin stop, only to better his own 200m record by 0.13 seconds in Budapest.

Along with his World Cup triumph, Qin ends the year having also set a world record for the 200m breaststroke at the World Aquatics Championships in July, where he also became the first male swimmer to sweep the three breaststroke events. Managing to shave 0.47 off the previous world record set by Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook in 2022, Qin, who also holds several Asian records to his name, touched the wall in 2:05.48.

Qin also dominated the breaststroke competition at the World University Games in Chengdu and collected five gold medals at the Asian Games last month.

“The most proud thing for me this year is that I broke the record,” he said. “It’s a surprise for me. More importantly, I got more improvement than last year, that’s really, really made me happy.”

McKeown, meanwhile, became the first woman with each backstroke world record to her name after shattering the 50m and 100m records at the World Cup’s Budapest stop.

The 22-year-old also accumulated the most points of the competition with 177.4 points, where Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey finished second with 166.4 points.

Like Qin, McKeown left the World Cup with three triple crowns.

The Australian saw the same results at the World Aquatics Championships, making history as the first swimmer to win the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke titles at a single edition.

China’s Qin and Australian McKeown win male and female swimmer of year awards

Qin Haiyang and Kaylee McKeown are enjoying a year filled with gold medals, tournament sweeps and world records.

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