Kyle Chalmers is as selfless a teammate as there is in Australian swimming, but for him to achieve a lifelong dream, his teammates must the selfless ones, writes James Magnussen.
The only thing missing from Kyle’s collection is the individual 100m freestyle world championship gold medal and there’s not a swim fan in Australia who doesn’t want to see him get that at next month’s world titles in Fukuoka, Japan.
I have no doubt he can do it but it’s not going to be easy. He’s going to be up against Caeleb Dressel and David Popovici – one the current Olympic champion and the other the current world record holder.
Kyle will need to swim the race of his life and this could prove difficult with the sheer volume of relays he’s expected to swim.
Kyle is the linchpin for the men’s team and with so many relays these days – the 4x100m freestyle, the 4x200m freestyle, medley, mixed medley and mixed freestyle – that’s a lot of pressure to be anchored on one person.
A 100m individual world title is the only thing missing from Chalmers’ CV. Photo by Michael Klein.
He’s shown before that he always steps up when the Australian team needs him, but even for Kyle, it’s a lot of extra work to take on board – especially this year.
Because of the new rules, only the top three teams from each relay at the world championships qualify automatically for next year’s Paris Olympics, so there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the Australian relays to perform.
The worry for Kyle is that he might also have to swim some of the relay heats just to make sure Australia gets into the finals.
Pending improvement from some swimmers between trials and worlds, there’s currently not enough depth in our men’s 100m and 200m freestyle events to be able to rest our big guns for the relay finals.
If Kyle has to swim heats, something will have to give. That could be his individual 100m performance.
Because he’s such a team player, he will always put the team first so you won’t hear him complain.
That’s where the other guys need to step up. If Kyle is to win the individual 100m, he needs to be at his absolute best to go head-to-head with the likes of Dressel and Popovici.
At the end of the day, that’s still the race everyone wants to see. For the first time in years, three of the biggest names in swimming are all going to be at the peak of their powers a year out from the Paris Olympics.
Kyle Chalmers (R) celebrates and Flynn Southam (L) after the men’s 100m freestyle swimming final at the 2023 Australian World Championship Trial. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
Kyle can definitely win it but he’ll need to have all his energy to match it with these guys.
That doesn’t mean Australia can’t win the 4x100m freestyle relay as well, but Kyle can’t do that alone. History shows you need four swimmers splitting 47 seconds and nothing less.
You can lock Kyle in for a low 47 or even a 46, and Flynn Southam has just shown he can go a 47 off the gun, so lock him in too.
We need at least two more people to step up and be able to dip well into those 47s because if we have just swimmer going 48 or 47 high, that just puts so much more pressure on Kyle anchoring.
He‘s got so much to juggle with all these relays, that there’s a danger he could be stretching himself too thin across a whole week of racing, particularly if he’s called on to swim heats.
If his teammates can take a bit of heat off him so he only has to swim relay finals, he can really dial in on his individual 100m freestyle and put Australia back on the map in that event.