Category: Swimming & Diving

The Australian has always positioned himself as the underdog but his enduring brilliance – and medal tally – suggests he should be anything but

It is rare to find such a decorated athlete – one with a regal moniker, no less – who still thrives on being the underdog. Australia’s Kyle Chalmers, “King Kyle”, has won just about everything there is to win in international swimming. Yet year after year he returns, somehow still the underdog, somehow ready to spring another upset.

In recent days, at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, it has been more of the same. On Sunday, Chalmers anchored Australia’s relay team to an unexpected gold in the men’s 4×100m freestyle relay. On Thursday, he will go again in the individual event – the two-lap freestyle blitz, another opportunity for Chalmers to reign supreme. Arise, King Kyle, once more?

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• Post-Olympic injury blues banished with Singapore swim

• Rookie Harrison Turner wins bronze in 200m butterfly

Australian swimmer Mollie O’Callaghan’s golden touch has continued with an emotional victory at the world championships in Singapore.

O’Callaghan collected gold in the women’s 200m freestyle on a Wednesday night when Australia’s fortunes fluctuated.

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• Australian sees off US rival Regan Smith in Singapore

• Lani Pallister wins 1500m freestyle bronze behind Katie Ledecky

Australia’s backstroke star Kaylee McKeown has overcome an injury scare to capture another world title.

Just weeks after dislocating a shoulder, McKeown notched a personal best to win the women’s 100m backstroke at swimming’s world championships in Singapore on Tuesday night.

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• McIntosh aiming for five individual golds

• Gretchen Walsh wins first USA gold in 100 butterfly

Two days. Two gold medals.

Summer McIntosh is off to a perfect start at the swimming world championships in her attempt to win five individual gold medals, a feat only achieved by American legend Michael Phelps.

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• ‘I can’t be happier,’ says 25-year-old Queenslander

• Race won by US world-record holder Gretchen Walsh

Alexandria Perkins has nabbed a bronze medal for Australia on day two of the swimming world championships in Singapore while Canadian superstar Summer McIntosh continued her winning ways and the virus-stricken US finally broke their gold medal duck.

Perkins produced a strong finish to snare third place in a hotly contested women’s 100m butterfly final in Singapore on Monday night.

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• Olivia Wunsch pulls off late comeback in 4x100m freestyle relay

• Kyle Chalmers reels in US to snare gold for men’s relay team

Australia ended the opening night of the swimming world championships with a dose of double golden joy after the country’s men and women prevailed in the 4x100m freestyle relay events.

There was heartbreak to begin the night after Australian Sam Short was pipped by 0.02 of a second by German world record holder Lukas Maertens in a thrilling 400m men’s freestyle showdown in Singapore.

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• Gastroenteritis affecting American swimmers

• Outbreak traced to pre-meet camp in Thailand

• Ledecky unaffected, leads 400m freestyle field

The United States swim team is battling an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis that has affected several athletes at the start of the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore.

Team officials confirmed the illness originated during a pre-meet training camp in Phuket, Thailand, and has compromised multiple performances as competition got under way on Sunday.

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The teenage phenom from Canada is chasing five golds in Singapore, but her showdown with the sport’s longtime 800m free queen could signal a passing of the torch

For the first time in more than a decade, Katie Ledecky may not be the most feared swimmer in the pool. That honor now belongs to Summer McIntosh, the Canadian teenager looking to do what only Michael Phelps has done before her: win five individual gold medals at a single world swimming championships.

Their clash in the 800m freestyle on 2 August is set to be the defining moment of the weeklong meet in Singapore. Ledecky, the most decorated female swimmer in history, is bidding for an unprecedented seventh world title at the distance she has dominated since 2013. McIntosh, just 18, is the only swimmer to have beaten her at 800m in the past 15 years.

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Swim events at the World Aquatics Championships get under way this weekend as the Dolphins put the drawing board behind them

Barely an hour after the Australian swim team had completed a successful meet at the Paris Olympics, the Dolphins head coach, Rohan Taylor, was already looking to the future. “We’ll go back to the drawing board,” he said on the pool deck. “Performance by design” is one of his often-repeated mantras. So relentless is the pursuit of gold that the following morning, the Dolphins held a debriefing session to reflect on improvements ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

In the year that followed, Australia’s swim stars have enjoyed time away from the pool. Some retired – the nation’s most successful Olympian of all time, Emma McKeon, brought the curtain down on her glittering career, and had a local pool named in her honour. Some tried their hand at other activities – 50m and 100m freestyle star Shayna Jack featured on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, while middle-distance titan Ariarne Titmus is still out of the water, recently on commentary duties at the Australian swimming trials.

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• Compatriot Kyle Lee takes bronze in men’s 10km race in Singapore

• Events were postponed multiple times due to water quality concerns

Moesha Johnson has won Australia’s first 10km open water world title as compatriot Kyle Lee opened the team medal tally with bronze in the men’s race.

It is Australia’s fifth open water world title over all distances with Johnson and Lee in the quartet that will defend the mixed-team title at the Singapore world aquatics championships.

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• Penn settles Title IX case over Lia Thomas’ wins

• School will ban trans women from female sports

• Feds call it a victory for women and girls’ rights

The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to ban transgender women from its women’s sports teams to resolve a federal civil rights case that found the school violated the rights of female athletes.

The US Education Department announced the voluntary agreement Tuesday. The case focused on Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022, when she became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title.

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• McIntosh breaks 400m IM world record in 4:23.65 time

• Third record broken in five days for Canadian teenager

• 18-year-old matches Phelps’ 2008 mark for single meet

Summer McIntosh broke her third swimming world record in five days on Wednesday night, clocking 4:23.65 in the women’s 400m individual medley at the Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria, British Columbia.

The 18-year-old from Toronto lowered her own world record of 4:24.38, set earlier this year, and became the first swimmer to break world records in three different individual events at one long course meet since Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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• Schoolgirl wins 100m breaststroke to qualify for world championships

• Toohey only started swimming as she wanted to play water polo

A 16-year-old schoolgirl is being hailed as the future of Australian swimming after earning world championship selection. Sienna Toohey left seasoned campaigners including Kaylee McKeown in awe with a stunning swim at Australia’s selection trials in Adelaide on Tuesday night.

The Albury teenager, who only started swimming because she wanted to play water polo, triumphed in the women’s 100m breaststroke. Toohey’s victory, in a personal best time of 1:06.55, secured her berth at the world titles in Singapore from 27 July to 3 August.

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• 18-year-old adds 200m IM record to 400m freestyle mark

• Olympic champion also recorded third-fastest 800m freestyle

Summer McIntosh set a world record for the second time in three days at the Canadian swimming trials on Monday with the 18-year-old eclipsing Hungarian great Katinka Hosszu’s 200m individual medley mark set 10 years ago.

Three-times Olympic champion McIntosh, who set a world record in the 400m freestyle on Saturday, touched the wall in two minutes, 05.70 seconds to knock 0.42 off Hosszu’s time from the 2015 world championships in Kazan.

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• ‘I was in a really dark place mentally,’ says Kaylee McKeown

• Mollie O’Callaghan speaks of ‘immense pressure’ during Games

Kaylee McKeown was in a dark place and Mollie O’Callaghan suddenly realised she had no friends outside of her sport. They were two lost souls after swimming in the fish-bowl of the Paris Olympics.

“Coming off the Olympics, I was in a really dark place mentally,” McKeown said. “When you go from such a high, straight back to such a low, and you’re left scrambling for ideas on what you’re going to do next, it is hard to find your feet once again.”

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