Australia’s most decorated medallist Emma McKeon has reaffirmed she is only retired from the Olympics, not swimming altogether, leaving the door open to a final fling in the pool.
The 30-year-old entered Paris 2024 having already announced it would be her third and last Olympics, a weight off the shoulders beyond even the normal comedown from preparing for the biggest week in the sport.
More accolades followed there — three more medals and a totally unexpected invite to take part in the closing ceremony — and it was suddenly assumed McKeon would sail off into the sunset.
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The Australian Olympic Committee declared McKeon had “bid farewell” and was “ready to begin the next chapter of her life”, with retirement headlines following elsewhere.
But the six-time gold medallist hasn’t packed away the goggles just yet.
“It’s just retiring from the Olympics, that’ll be my last Olympics, and I need to take a break and refresh. We’ll just see,” McKeon tells 7NEWS.com.au after returning from Paris.
The possibility of easing back into life at home is a significant shift from Tokyo three years ago when McKeon kept racing for another four months.
With the world still upside down due to COVID, McKeon and several teammates jumped at the opportunity to head straight over to Europe and compete in the big-money International Swimming League on what became a working holiday.
World Cup events and more ISL legs followed before she stepped out of the pool for months and seriously considered walking away from swimming then and there.
Time out of the pool was necessary, and it remains so now.
“We’ll do a bit more travelling, probably take a bit more of a holiday in October. I just got home, I’m trying to work things out but take a breather as well,” McKeon says.
As well as her plan to wait and see, Ariarne Titmus has already announced she will step away for up to 12 months before hoping to refire towards Los Angeles 2028.
“I think it’s important to take a big break, especially after an Olympics, that’s the top of those four years,” McKeon says.
“Whether you do well or not, you can come out of it super motivated wanting to get back in the pool and get back training immediately, because I think as athletes we’re always searching for that improvement and want more out of ourselves.
“But I think it’s really important to take quite a decent break coming off the Olympics because you need to take that time to yourself just to get your feelings back in check and deal with the highs and lows.
“You do come down from the Olympics and you go through a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, so you’ve got to be a normal person for a bit and get out of that normal routine of being an elite athlete, where everything comes down to the 0.01 of a second and everything’s got to be perfect with your day-to-day life kind of thing.
“It does take a toll. If you want to keep your career going for a long time, you’ve got to, you really have to take that time (off).”
McKeon, who advocates for sport’s “unsung heroes” as part of Cadbury’s ‘Give A Cheer To A Volunteer’ campaign, brought the curtain down on her Olympic career on the last night of a nine-day swimming program that kicked off with a bang.
She raced four times on an opening day that started with a 100m butterfly heat and ended with 4x100m freestyle relay gold.
“I knew that 4×100 free was obviously going to be very competitive. I’ve been in that relay for so many years, so I wanted to make sure I was a part of that final,” McKeon says.
“That day one for me was a huge day. I knew I had to be really on for that.
“The relays are really special to me and really important for Australia as a whole, I just really want to be a part of that.”
The Olympics then ended with one of the biggest honours she could have received.
While reflecting on her status as one of Australia’s most decorated athletes has been a sport in itself since Tokyo, being recognised for that CV can still surprise.
The day before the closing ceremony, McKeon learned the International Olympic Committee wanted her to represent all of Oceania during the Stade de France spectacular.
The Australian emerged on stage alongside Eliud Kipchoge (Africa), Mijain Lopez (Americas), Sun Yingsha (Asia), Teddy Riner (Europe), Cindy Ngamba (refugee team) to stand with IOC president Thomas Bach and Paris 2024 boss Tony Estanguet.
“That was such a special moment, I wasn’t expecting that at all,” McKeon says.
“I found out, I think it was just the day before, (Australian chef de mission) Anna Meares called me and asked me. That was a huge honour.”
The six athletes also blew out the Olympic flame with France’s new swimming icon Leon Marchand.
“I honestly didn’t even realise what the role entailed until not long before,” McKeon adds.
“So when they said you’re going to be blowing out the Olympic flame with these other incredible athletes, it was a very surreal moment, just an honour and a great way to finish it all off.”
