Tokyo Olympics | Australian McKeon anointed sprint queen
An electric Emma McKeon blazed to the women’s Olympic 100m freestyle gold on Friday as flying South African Tatjana Schoenmaker smashed the long-standing women’s 200m breaststroke world record. Australia’s McKeon claimed her fourth Tokyo medal when she hit the wall in a new Olympic record of 51.96 seconds, the second fastest ever.
Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey (52.27s) earned another silver after the 200m freestyle, when she came second behind Australia’s Ariarne Titmus.
Australian veteran Cate Campbell was third in 52.52s, bettering her disappointing sixth at the Rio Olympics when she was hot favourite.
McKeown had already clinched gold and bronze in the 4×100 and 4×200 relays and came third in the 100m butterfly, with her four medals so far equalling her Rio tally.
While she was crowned the Tokyo sprint queen, Schoenmaker carved out her own slice of history with a sensational swim in the 200m breast final.
The 24-year-old touched in 2:18.95s to better the 2:19.11s world record set by Denmark’s Rikke Moller Pedersen in 2013.
