The official program for these Olympics has a page dedicated to Kaylee McKeown, highlighting her as one of the athletes to watch at the Games.

In it she is described as “the little mermaid from Queensland”. It’s unlikely that line was intended to be quite as condescending as it comes across, but it also feels like a swing and a miss in terms of defining McKeown.

Over two Olympic campaigns now she has proven herself to be a giant, undisputedly the best female backstroker in the world.

Her battle with American Regan Smith was touted as up with the hottest in the Paris pool, but McKeown hasn’t given her a look in.

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She blitzed her in the 100m final with an Olympic record time, then belted her by even more in Saturday morning’s 200m final with another Olympic record. Smith is clearly a brilliant backstroker, but she isn’t Kaylee McKeown.

In completing the “double-double”, winning the 100m and 200m backstroke events at two consecutive Olympics, she has instantly placed herself among the elite of the sport.

In fact, no Australian has achieved what McKeown did at Paris La Défense Arena. Not Thorpe, not Fraser, not McKeon. Nobody.

With all that pressure on her shoulders, McKeown raced her 200m final to perfection.

By now she has complete confidence in her ability to close out races, and her opponents know it too. When Smith called her “an incredible racer” after the 100m final, she was paying McKeown the highest compliment — there is a difference between swimming fast and true racing.

McKeown was third after 50 and 100, albeit by next to nothing. A three-woman battle between her, Smith and Canada’s Kylie Masse had broken out, though with the other two lanes second and seventh respectively, McKeown was free to swim her own race without their looming presence on her shoulders.

She hit the final turn in second and dropped the hammer. It was effectively all over with 25m still to go.

In an all-conquering, generationally gifted group of Australian female swimmers, McKeown stands out as the most easily relatable and approachable.

That demeanour obviously peels away as soon as she hits the water, but outside competition she is able to do away with the intensity more naturally than most of her teammates.

She generally celebrates with a wide-eyed joy, even though she says she can’t see anything without her glasses. She swears on TV, apologises, says she won’t swear on TV anymore, and then swears on TV again.

God knows what her brothers have been getting up to over here, having launched a TikTok campaign to get their tickets to Paris, but on Kaylee’s big nights they have been on deck going as nuts as anyone.

It is impossible to watch McKeown compete, win and succumb completely to the moment and not have a giant smile on your face.

But this time, Kaylee’s reaction in the pool was more subdued. She took a deep breath, hugged her nearest competitors and made for the exit.

Even after she was awarded her gold medal, it was swiftly removed and handed to her coach so she could prepare for an imminent 200m IM semifinal. There was still a job to do.

Fatigue was evident in her semifinal, but she did enough to qualify. Adding to her medal tally in the 200m IM will be no easy feat against the likes of Summer McIntosh and Alex Wood, but who would bet against her right now?

As long as she has events to race her thirst for victory will be unquenched — but with McKeown you always feel like she’s competing for the fun of it.

She isn’t hung up on records and rivals. She does it her way. McKeown is an individual and the natural non-conformist streak in her helps make her the champion she is. 

In that regard, hardship has been her secret weapon.

The tragedy she endured as a young woman, losing her father to brain cancer when she was a teenager, could have broken her.

Instead, she has somehow found the mental fortitude to rise to great heights, all the while leaning on the memory and love of her dad — her “little superpower”, as she calls it — in these seismic Olympic moments.

Perspective might be the best thing any elite athlete can have. Being able to dedicate yourself to your craft with total commitment, while still having the awareness to recognise it can never be the most important thing in life is something all of us should aspire to.

The path to perspective is generally a tormented one and not something you would wish upon anybody, but often it can forge the most incredible humans.

You get the feeling no amount of gold can change Kaylee McKeown. Which is a good thing, because at 23 years old she’s not done winning them yet.