Swim star says DQ blunder will add to mental toughness

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Swim star says DQ blunder will add to mental toughness

Kaylee McKeown has said a disqualification blunder will only add to her mental steel after a dramatic start to her world championship selection trials.

McKeown was aghast to be disqualified after her heat in the 50m backstroke heat on Monday morning at Australia’s trials in Adelaide.

Race officials DQ’d McKeown, the world record holder in the event, for initiating an early start.

But after a protest, and a two-hour appeal, she was reinstated to the final when officials ruled McKeown was distracted by movement prior to the starter’s signal.

“It’s something that you really want to practice,” McKeown said.

“But it’s good to mentally toughen yourself up and hopefully it prepares me for anything down the track.”

McKeown won Monday night’s final at the South *********** Aquatic Centre in 27.33 seconds, well shy of her 26.86 global benchmark set in October 2023.

The five-time Olympic gold medallist refused to detail the exact distraction that caused her initial disqualification.

“Things happen and it just crumbled that way,” she said.

“I knew as soon as I started, what I had done.

“But thankfully we had the technology to look back at footage and saw the distraction and I got reinstated.”

With her victory, McKeown secured her ticket to the world championships in Singapore from July 27 to August 3.

In the men’s 400m freestyle, Sam Short laid an emphatic marker in his redemption tale after a disappointing Olympics last year.

Short was rated a gold-medal freestyle fancy in the 400m, 800m and 1500m in Paris but finished fourth, ninth and 13th respectively.

On Monday night, he won the 400m free final in three minutes 41.03 seconds from Paris silver medallist Elijah Winnington (3:43.99).

“I came fourth (in the 400m) at the Olympics, so in our lives it’s probably a little bit of a failure,” Short said.

“But I’ve got tons of mates … they’d literally probably chop their legs off just to get the opportunity to come fourth at the Olympics.”

Lani Pallister won the women’s 400m freestyle in 3:59.72 – the first time she has dipped under four minutes in the event.

Pallister will lead Australia’s tilt in the event in Singapore in the absence of Olympic champion Ariarne Titmus, who will miss the worlds while on an extended break.

In the women’s 200m individual medley, Ella Ramsay (2:09.21) prevailed.

And Alex Perkins won the women’s 100m butterfly in a personal best time of 56.42 – 0.36 seconds quicker than her previous benchmark set hours earlier in the heats.

In the men’s 100m butterfly, Nash Wilkes (1:00.19) touched ahead of Bailey Lello (1:00.47) but both were outside the automatic qualifying time of 59.75 set by Swimming Australia.

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