Kai Taylor has the chance to emulate his swimming-great mother Hayley Lewis after booking his ticket to the world championships in Japan with victory in the men’s 200m freestyle at the trials in Melbourne.
Like his mother, who won the same event as a teenager at the 1991 world titles in Perth, 19-year-old Taylor took gold from lane eight after he initially missed qualifying for the final.
A then 16-year-old Lewis swam in the outside lane to upset American legend Janet Evans for gold.
Taylor was gifted a spot in Wednesday night’s final when Kyle Chalmers withdrew to concentrate on the rest of his program.
The Queensland teen made the most of his chance to lead at every turn to touch home in one minute 46.25 seconds.
Taylor, who won the event at the national titles in April, admitted he was in tears after initially misjudging his heat to finish ninth fastest.
But he was thrilled with his performance in the final.
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“This morning was a disappointing swim and there was a little bit of tears but fortunately Kyle pulled out which got me an eighth spot and that took the pressure off me a little bit after my win at nationals,” Taylor said.
“I think he was always going to pull out but the fact that he did, it meant the world to me and I will definitely be sending him a message.”
Bursting with pride his triple Olympian mother watched from the stands after giving her son some advice before the race.
“Even though she’s a legend of the sport she just wants me to be happy,” Taylor said.
“She told me to do my thing, be calm, but she did however mention that great things happen from lane eight.”
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In other results on Wednesday night, Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown posted the third fastest time in history in the 100m backstroke final.
McKeown stormed home in 57.50, just 0.50 seconds off her own world mark of 57.45.
Mollie O’Callaghan was second in 58.42, both well inside Swimming Australia’s qualifying time for Fukuoka of 59.99.
“It was nice to get down to that time, the 57 lows as I wasn’t expecting that time,” 21-year-old McKeown said.
“It’s always good to have Mollie pushing me along.”
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Isaac Cooper revealed he was “almost in tears” before the final of the men’s 100m butterfly after drastically overhauling his training program and cutting back his kilometres in the pool.
The 19-year-old said he had swapped laps for mixed martial arts, tennis and surfing but still managed his fastest time in 15 months.
Tokyo Olympian Cooper touched in 53.46 – just outside the qualifying mark of 53 seconds but will still be on the plane to Japan.
“The last few weeks have been stressful for me as I made a very drastic change to my program,” the 19-year-old Queenslander said.
“For the last three months I started doing MMA, tennis and I’ve been surfing three to four times a week and using those as training sessions.
“Leading into this comp I was nervous to see what my results would be.”
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In the final race of the night former pop star Cody Simpson had to settle for fourth in the men’s 50m butterfly which was won by Cameron McEvoy in 23.07 seconds.
In a blanket finish Simpson clocked 23.48, 0.02 seconds behind second-placed Shaun Champion.
-AAP
