Olympic hopeful Kaylee McKeown set a new 200m backstroke short-course world record at the Australian national championships, officials said Saturday. The teenager clocked a blistering 1:58.94 to smash Hungarian Katinka Hosszu's 2014 mark of 1:59.23. "Short-course is something we don't get to very often so I was excited to see what I could put up after some solid training this year," said McKeown.

"I headed over to my teammates and my coach and they said, 'you just got a world-record, and I was like, what?' I didn't actually know till a few minutes later." The Australian short-course championships are being held in virtual format this year due to Covid-19, with swimmers competing at the same time in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Hobart.