Emma McKeon

Emma McKeon is, quite simply, the most successful Australian Olympian of all time.

Before the Wollongong native's 28th birthday she'd won more Olympic medals than any Australian Olympian in history, a growing group of 4,500+ individuals dating back to 1896.

Emma's second Olympic Games, Tokyo 2020, best showed her determination and excellence to come away with four gold and three bronze medals at a pandemic-delayed Olympics in 2021. It is the single biggest medal haul by a female swimmer at an Olympic Games and is tied for the most medals won by a female athlete in any sport at an Olympics.

Her mesmerising performances in Tokyo included one world record (4x100m freestyle relay) and four Olympic records (50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, the women's 4x100m medley relay and the 4x100m freestyle relay).

The 4x100m freestyle relay world record was taken down in the final with Cate Campbell, Bronte Campbell, Meg Harris and Emma posting a time of 3:29.69, beating the previous time also set by Australia at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games - which Emma was apart of.

She was also Australia’s most successful swimmer at the Rio 2016 Olympics, which was her Olympic debut. She took home one gold, two silver and a bronze medal.

Her career swansong came at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, with the champion swimmer telling everyone before the Games it would be her final Olympics. Emma added another three Olympic medals to her tally - relay gold, silver and bronze - with the women’s 4x100m freestyle gold, in Olympic record time, being the fourth-straight Olympics Australia has taken gold from the event.

Emma first became an Olympic champion on the Australian 4x100m freestyle relay team with Brittany Elmslie, Cate and Bronte - breaking the world record in a time of 3:30.65, bettering Australia's previous world-best mark of 3:30.98 set at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

In the 4x200m freestyle relay at Rio she won silver with Bronte Barratt, Leah Neale and Tamsin Cook. Emma's first individual Olympic medal was bronze in the 200m freestyle and she closed out Rio 2016 with silver in the 4x100m medley relay alongside Emily Seebohm, Taylor McKeown and Cate.

Emma comes from a strong family of Aussie swimmers. Her father Ron McKeon swam at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics and won four Commonwealth Games gold medals. Her uncle Rob Woodhouse swam at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, winning bronze in Los Angeles. Her brother David McKeon (London 2012, Rio 2016) is also a dual Olympian and won silver in Rio. Her mother Susie (nee Woodhouse) was a Commonwealth Games swimmer at Brisbane 1982.

Emma's first taste of the Olympics came at the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore during 2010, where she took home one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.

After narrowly missing selection for the London 2012 Olympic Games she took a hiatus from swimming.

Emma then rediscovered her passion for the sport and made her senior international debut at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, claiming six medals from six races (four gold and two bronze).

At the 2015 World Championships in Russia, Emma won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay, bronze from the 4x100m medley relay and finished seventh in the 200m freestyle.

In 2018 she took her Commonwealth Games medal tally from six to 12. Emma won gold in the 100m butterfly, 4x100m freestyle relay (World Record), 4x200m freestyle relay (Commonwealth Games Record) and the 4x100m medley relay (Commonwealth Games Record) – while picking up bronze in the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly.

In her fourth successive appearance at the World Championships in 2019, Emma won gold in the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 4x200m freestyle relay (World Record) – silver in the 4x100m medley relay, mixed 4x100m medley relay and mixed 4x100m freestyle relay – bronze in the 100m butterfly. It became the most fruitful World Championships campaign of her career.

At the 2021 Olympic trials she powered home in both the 100m and 50m freestyle to claim double gold. Earlier that week Emma also won the 100m butterfly and came second in the 200m freestyle.

After the dominant performance in Tokyo, Emma had nothing left to prove – no one could have begrudged her for calling it quits and starting the next chapter in her life.

But after a break she was back in the water and in 2022 in Birmingham, she became the most successful competitor in Commonwealth Games history, taking her overall total to 20 medals, 14 of them gold. Her eight medals in Birmingham also equalled the records for the most medals and most gold medals by a competitor at a single Games.

She won gold in the 50m freestyle, the 50m butterfly, the 4x100m freestyle relay, the 4x100m medley relay, the 4x100m mixed freestyle relay and the 4x100m mixed medley relay, silver in the 100m butterfly and bronze in the 100m freestyle.

Then in 2023, Emma played her part as Australia become the most successful team at the world championships in Fukuoka. Japan, with 13 gold medals, seven silver and five bronze.

She was the anchor swimmer for Australia in their 4x100m freestyle victory in world record time on the opening night in Fukuoka. Teaming up with Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack and Meg Harris, Emma swam a 51.90 split as the team put together an astonishing 3:27.96, shattering the record set in Tokyo.

She was also part of the Australian team that won silver in the 4x100m medley relay, narrowly beaten by the United States. The result gave Emma, swimming the butterfly leg, her 20th lifetime world championship medal, breaking Grant Hackett’s long-standing Australian record of 19.

As the build-up to the Paris Olympics intensified, Emma won gold in the 100m butterfly at the 2024 Australian championships on the Gold Coast, along with silver in the 50m butterfly and bronze in the 50m and 100m freestyle.

She booked her ticket to Paris with victory in the 100m butterfly at the Australian Olympic trials in Brisbane in June, clocking 56.85.

Emma missed out on the chance to defend her Olympic 100m freestyle title when she was defeated by the next generation of female sprinters, in a final where she was one of seven swimmers that were under the qualifying time.

It meant the 100m butterfly was her only individual event in Paris, where she finished sixth in the final after taking bronze in Tokyo.

However, she swam in the Olympic record setting women's 4x100m freestyle team for gold and also the women's 4x100m medley relay for silver and the mixed 4x100m medley relay for bronze.

Her final tally of 14 Olympic medals is tied for most by any female Olympic swimmer in history and she held eight world records.

At the Paris 2024 Olympic Closing Ceremony she joined the IOC President Thomas Bach to represent Oceania for the Olympic anthem and handover of the Olympic flag to Los Angeles 2028.

In November 2024 the then 30-year-old announced her retirement from all competitive swimming.