Aussie Meg Harris stuns with 50m freestyle world championship win

Meg Harris has become Australia’s newest world champion after she swam to victory in the women’s 50m freestyle at the world titles in Singapore.

The 23-year-old had been one of the big underdog stories of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, bolting from an outside lane to claim a shock silver medal in the 50m freestyle.

Inspired by that moment and the success of Australia’s unique sprint king Cameron McEvoy*, Harris decided to stop focusing on racing in the 100m event and focus on being a one-lap sprinter instead.

It was a huge risk given her previous success in 100m events, but it looks like the move has now paid off.

Harris swam a near-perfect race to take Australia’s eighth gold medal of the world titles. Harris won the race in just 24.02 seconds, ahead of China’s Qingfeng Wu (24.26s), who came in second place, and Yujie Cheng (24.28s), who finished third.

The win in the blue ribbon* race makes Harris Australia’s first women’s 50m freestyle world champion in a decade, since Bronte Campbell* last won the title for her country in Kazan, Russia, in 2015.

Australia now boasts the fastest man and woman in the world, after Cameron McEvoy also won the 50m freestyle earlier in the meet.

“I still don’t have the words to process this, but this is a dream,” Harris said.

“I felt really good the first 15m and that’s been my weakness so far. I knew if I got that right I just had to hold on.”

Harris said she made the bold call to focus on the 50m after struggling to get back into the grind of swimming life after Paris.

“It was a bit of a tough one. I felt such a high coming off that, and then starting out this year I had to find a new motivation, not just coming in and doing the exact same thing,” she explained.

“I tried for the first couple months, but something just wasn’t working. I needed to find a new way to do it. So I stripped everything back and started with the basics, all the things … like the reasons I started swimming. I love sprinting, I love racing.

“So we just took that all back, did everything that I love. I’m excited now to put together the rest when I get home. But yeah, cannot be happier.”

In a post-Olympic year, Australia’s eight gold medals has been a stronger return than expected for a swim team that was tipped to struggle with heavyweights like Ariarne Titmus taking the year off, Zac Stubblety-Cook out injured and Olympic great Emma McKeon retired.

But while there have been surprise wins, there have also been shock losses.

Mollie O’Callaghan suffered a disappointment in Friday’s 100m freestyle final, coming second and missing out on setting a new record for the most gold medals won by an Australian swimmer.

O’Callaghan was the strong favourite to win the two-lap sprint after taking out the 200m gold two days earlier, but the 21-year-old Queenslander couldn’t get enough speed to hold off Dutch star Marrit Steenbergen on the last lap.

The pair turned at the 50m mark dead-heated* for third with identical times of 25.34 but Steenbergen sped up to cover the second length 0.12 quicker than O’Callaghan.

Steenbergen, who won gold at the last world championships, touched the wall first, winning the race in 52.55 seconds with O’Callaghan claiming silver in 52.67.

Asked how she felt, O’Callaghan said: “Tired, very tired.”

“I’ve been coming off last night and like I’ve said a thousand times, I haven’t had the greatest preparation towards this and to do what I did tonight and last night and the nights before, I’m pretty proud,” she said.

“To be on the podium is something special and I’m always grateful for that. Obviously, I would love to win, everyone would love to win.”

American Torri Huske, who won the silver medal behind Sarah Sjostrom at last year’s Paris Olympics, collected bronze after leading at the halfway stage before being overtaken by the Dutch and Aussie speedsters.

O’Callaghan had already won three gold medals in Singapore to lift her career tally to 11 golds at the world championships.

That has left her tied with Aussie swimming great Ian Thorpe for the most world championship gold medals won by an Australian swimmer.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• Cameron McEvoy: the fastest Australian male swimmer, McEvoy won gold in the 50m freestyle in Singapore while competing in his seventh world championships – which was exactly one year after he won gold in the same event at the Paris Olympics. At 31, he is the oldest Australian to win gold at a world championship
• Bronte Campbell: an Australian Olympic swimmer who won Olympic gold three times and was crowned world champion in both the 50m and 100m freestyle at the world championships in 2015
• blue ribbon: something pre-eminent or held in high regard, a high quality event or achievement
• dead-heated: when two or more competitors earn the same score or finish at exactly the same time

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QUICK QUIZ
1. Who are the fastest male and female 50m swimmers in the world?
2. Why did Meg Harris decide to focus on one lap sprinting?
3. How many gold medals did Australia win at the world titles in Singapore?
4. How many gold medals has Mollie O’Callaghan won in her career?
5. How many of these did she win in Singapore?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Aussie swim stars
Australia has the fastest male and female swimmers in the world after winning gold medals in the 50m freestyle swimming events at the world swimming titles.

What are the factors that make Australia so successful in this sport, all through history, until now? Work with a partner and list some possible reasons below;

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Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
What events have we won gold medals in at the world titles in Singapore?

How do athletes cope with the pressure they face when favourites to win an event?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there during the event being discussed in the article, or for the interview.

Create a conversation between two characters from the article – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.