Paris Olympics 2024: Kaylee McKeown qualifies as raging hot favourite for 200m backstroke final

Australia’s greatest-ever backstroke swimmer is poised to join Ian Thorpe with five gold medals, winning the 200m semifinal in imposing fashion.

Kaylee McKeown was almost a body length ahead of her rivals before the 100-metre mark in her dominant semifinal swim, where she backed away from Olympic record pace to conserve herself for Saturday’s final.

McKeown, who has already won gold in the 100m backstroke at these Games, cruised to victory in the semi with a time of 2.07:57 and is now the raging hot favourite to claim her fifth gold.

It would put her alongside Thorpe and just one behind Emma McKeon among Australia’s most decorated Olympians.

The Queenslander won both the 100 and 200m backstroke titles three years ago in Tokyo.

Phoebe Bacon beat countrywoman Regan Smith to the wall in the other semifinal, but Smith is expected to lift in Saturday’s final, with that swim coming just 40 minutes after she claimed silver in the women’s 200m butterfly final.

McKeown will also swim for Australia in the heats of the medley relay on Friday evening (AWST).

Aussie veteran Cam McEvoy also sent a shot across the bow of his rivals in the frantic 50m freestyle, finishing in a dead-heat for first in his semifinal.

McEvoy tied with Great Britain’s Ben Proud in Friday morning’s swim for a spot in the final, with a late surge in the last 25 metres.

French hometown hero Florent Manaudou only just made the cut in a huge relief for a feverish crowd at La Defence Arena.

The power event is the only one four-time Olympian McEvoy contested at Australian trials and he now enters Saturday morning’s showpiece final as one of the favourites.

Proud, who also swum a 21.38 and Cayman Islands swimmer Jordan Crooks, a star of the American college system, loom as his biggest threats.

United States veteran Caeleb Dressel finished second in the other semifinal and Frenchman Maxime Grousset touched in third.

Australian Ben Armbruster finished seventh and looks set to miss the final.

Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh won her second gold medal of the Paris Olympics in that event, the teenager landing another blow on the United States.

McIntosh took the lead just before the final turn in the women’s 200m butterfly and held off a late push from Smith.

The 17-year-old finished second behind Ariarne Titmus in the 400m freestyle on the opening night in the pool and won her maiden gold medal in a blistering 400m indibidual medley swim.

Chinese swimmer Zhang Yufei finished a close third, with Australian pair Elizabeth Dekkers finishing fourth and Abbey Connors seventh.

Dekkers flirted with the medal placings in the middle 100m, but Smith’s push helped the lead group stretch away from the field.

In a stirring 200m men’s backstroke final, Hubert Kos from Hungary just pipped Greece’s Apostolos Christou, who was just metres away from claiming his country’s first swimming gold medal in 100 years. Roman Mityukov of Switzerland won the bronze medal.

American Kate Douglas held off South African champion Tatjana Smith in the women’s event.

Australia’s 4x200m relay team are hot favourites to claim the country’s second gold medal of the Games later tonight.