Kyle Chalmers

Kyle Chalmers
Personal information
Surname:	Kyle Chalmers
Nation:	Australia
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle
Society:	Marion Swimming Club, Adelaide
Birthday:	June 25, 1998
Place of birth:	Port Lincoln , South Australia
Size:	1.93 m
Weight:	90 kg
Medal table

Kyle Chalmers (born June 25, 1998 in Port Lincoln , South Australia ) is an Australian swimmer and Olympic champion.

biography

Kyle Chalmers was born in Port Lincoln (according to other information in Ashford ), near Adelaide , where he also grew up. His father is former Australian football player Brett Chalmers , who was a professional in the Australian Football League . In his youth, Kyle Chalmers did athletics, basketball and football before he got into swimming.

Internationally, Chalmers first attracted attention at the swimming competitions of the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing , when the 16-year-old was used in the men's and mixed relays and won bronze medals three times. A year later he caused a stir at the Australian Championships in April 2015 when he completed the 100-meter freestyle in 48.89 s. During this time, he undercut his country's age group record by almost a second, and at that point he was the youngest swimmer to stay below the 49-second mark. This achievement earned Chalmers a place in the Australian squad for the 2015 World Swimming Championships in Kazan, Russia . Although the Australian relay could not qualify for the final of the 4 × 100 meter freestyle, Chalmers drew attention again with the third fastest time of all relay participants (47.92 s).

Chalmers won his first international title at the following youth swimming world championships in Singapore in the same year. Chalmers won a total of seven medals, including the gold medals in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle and in the 4 × 100-meter freestyle relay. After the successful year 2015, he signed a contract with Adidas for several years.

Chalmers greatest success so far with the seniors came in 2016. After qualifying for the Olympic squad as second in the 100-meter freestyle at the Australian Championships, he won the bronze medal in the 4 × 100-meter freestyle relay at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro , together with James Roberts , James Magnussen and Cameron McEvoy . He managed to trump this success at his start in the 100-meter freestyle. After Chalmers had already beaten the junior world record with 47.90 s in the preliminaries, he screwed this fastest time in the semifinals to 47.88 s and moved into the final as second fastest behind the US defending champion Nathan Adrian (47.83 s) . There he surprisingly achieved a best time of 47.58 s, which earned him the gold medal. Chalmers is the first Australian Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter freestyle since Michael Wenden at the 1968 Summer Olympics and, at the age of 18, the second youngest gold medalist in swimming since Ian Thorpe , with whom he is often compared because of his stature and early successes.

Kyle Chalmers lives in Glenelg North, a suburb of Adelaide, and is a student at Immanuel College. He is a member of the Marion Swimming Club in Adelaide and is trained there by Peter Bishop.

Web links

• Profile at swimswam.com (English)
• Profile on the website of the Australian Olympic Committee
• Kyle Chalmers in the database of Swimrankings.net (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} profile rio2016.olympics.com.au (English; accessed on August 11, 2016).
2. ^ ^{A b} Mann, Alex: Kyle Chalmers, Australia's accidental swimming star . ABC Transcripts (Australia), May 20, 2016, Show: 7.30 8:30 PM AEST ABC (accessed via Nexis ).
3. ↑ Guinness, Rupert: Magnussen in running to take back cherished title . April 6, 2015 (online version, accessed via Nexis ).
4. ↑ ^{a b c} profile at swimswam.com (English; accessed on August 11, 2016).
5. ↑ Masters, James: Rio 2016: Kyle Chalmers makes Olympic history on golden night for Australia at edition.cnn.com, August 10, 2016 (accessed August 11, 2016).
6. ↑ Paxinos, Stathi: Tackling the next Ian Thorpe burden . In: The Age , May 10, 2014, p. 40.