The 2024 Paris Olympics sit just 217 days away and the pressure to qualify for athletes is escalating tremendously. With competitions vanishing from the calendars very fast, the race to reach the starting line of Paris is getting tougher every day. In the midst of all this, a reassuring message comes from a mighty Australian swimming legend.

Emma McKeon is a 5x Olympic gold medalist who earned four of her gold medals from the Tokyo Olympics. The swimming legend recently added a social media update, featuring a post wherein she spoke about handling the pressure in sports. In fact, she gave special emphasis on sports like swimming, where just a millisecond changes the color of one’s medal and landslide victories being ubiquitous.

Emma McKeon and her reminder to fellow swimmers

Emma McKeon shared a story via her Instagram page with a post attached to it, carrying a video with her speaking in it. Sharing her story via the video, McKeon said, “At the Tokyo Olympics, I found out that I had won the most medals at the Olympics for any Australian. Even when I hear people say that now, it really still hasn’t sunk in like two years later.”

The swimming superstar further added, “I think what I’d really like to share with people is to not be afraid of the time that it’s going to take to achieve their goal because the time is going to pass anyway. If you put everything you can into trying to achieve that goal and to prepare and to work really hard at it, I think that’s what success is.” 

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Speaking about pressure, she said, “Definitely pressure and definitely a lot of eyes on swimming in the Olympics and just on sport in general, but for me, most of the pressure that I’ve experienced would be pressure for myself and that’s something I’ve kind of had to navigate across my career.” McKeon noted that this pressure may result in a search for perfection. However, she mentioned that, unlike its name suggests, perfection is a false notion.

The never-ending chase for perfection in swimming

Speaking about pressure without denying its objective realities, the Australian added, “When you’re in a sport where things are won by 0.01 of a second, you really have to be a bit of a perfectionist. And even though we’re striving for perfection, it doesn’t exist.” 

While everyone can learn from what she said, the Australian is the person who needs to hear this the most. Emma McKeon is currently dealing with a torn muscle under her armpit. Due to this, she had to pull out of the Queensland swimming championships held on 11 December in Brisbane. 

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Her coach said that it was a strategic move to avoid further injury and stay in good shape before the Olympics. Currently, it can’t be said if she will be fit enough to even reach Paris, let alone compete. Will Emma McKeon be able to recover in time and defend her Tokyo medals in Paris?

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