Kaylee McKeown beats Regan Smith in 200-meter backstroke

American swimmer Regan Smith was out-touched again by Australian rival Kaylee McKeown on Friday, earning her third silver medal of the 2024 Summer Olympics in the 200-meter backstroke. 

Smith and McKeown had battled it out Tuesday in the 100-meter backstroke, with the Aussie breaking past Smith in the final stretch to win gold. 

A similar situation unfolded in Friday’s 200-meter backstroke final, with Smith starting out strong and hitting the wall ahead of her competition at both the 100 and 150-meter marks.

The American — who had already grabbed silver in the 200-meter butterfly Thursday — was all the way out in lane seven, having only come into the final as the sixth seed following her semifinal swim.

McKeown, who was in the center of the pool as the second-place seed, gained on the third lap, flipping into the last wall only 0.18 seconds behind Smith.

By the time the pair had made it to the finish, McKeown claimed her victory with a time of 2:03.73.  

McKeown has now established back-to-back dominance in the backstroke, having won gold in the 100-meter and the 200-meter backstroke events in both Tokyo and Paris in the last two Summer Games. 

The Aussie also took the world record in the 200-meter backstroke in 2023, swimming a time of 2:03.14. 

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2024 PARIS OLYMPICS

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“I probably took my race out a little bit too hard,” McKeown said after her race Friday. “I was pretty nervous going in there tonight. I’m not one who gets overly nervous, probably more anxious than anything. So I went out hard and just held on for dear life.”

American swimmer Missy Franklin still holds the Olympic record from her stunning swim at the London Games in 2012, when she swam a time of 2:04.06. 

Smith now owns five silver medals and one bronze in Olympic competition. 

“I’m not too worried about medal count and what I need to do to get a specific color of medal,” Smith told reporters after taking Thursday’s butterfly silver. “If you get too caught up in things like colors of medals, I think that’s how you’re going to crumble.”

The 22-year-old holds the American record from her performance at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, where she went a time of 2:03.35 at just 17 years old.

She failed to qualify for the event in Tokyo, coming in third place at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials behind Rhyan White and Phoebe Bacon in 2021. 

Bacon was seeded first going into Friday’s final, but finished the race in fourth with a time of 2:05.61, just 0.04 seconds behind Canada’s Kylie Masse, the Tokyo silver medalist in the event. 

Bacon moved up from her Tokyo performance, as the American had come in fifth place just 0.01 seconds behind White in the last Games. 

McKeown will swim again Friday in the 200-meter individual medley semifinals, through which she’ll look to earn a spot in Saturday’s final.

She’ll battle it out with American swimmers Alex Walsh and Kate Douglass, who earned the silver and bronze medals for the event in Tokyo.