Kyle Chalmers
Kyle Chalmers, is an Australian competitive swimmer. He is a world record holder in the short course 100 metre freestyle, 4×100 metre medley relay, and long course 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay. He is the Oceanian and Australian record holder in the short course 50 metre butterfly and 50 metre freestyle.
At the 2014 Oceania Swimming Championships, Chalmers won the Oceania title in the 50 metre butterfly and 100 metre freestyle. He was the 2016 Olympic champion in Rio de Janeiro in the 100 metre freestyle, winning the gold medal in world junior record time. In 2018, he was Commonwealth Games champion in the 200 metre freestyle. He also won a gold medal in the 100 metre freestyle at the 2018 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships and a silver medal at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju in the 100 metre freestyle. He won his second Olympic medal in the 100 metre freestyle Olympic Games event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, winning the silver medal with a time of 47.08 in the final. In 2022, he won the gold medal in the 100 metre freestyle at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2022 World Short Course Championships. He is most well known for his clutch performing back-end splits.
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Chalmers won the silver medal in the 100m freestyle with a time of 47.48 seconds. In the Men's 4x100m freestyle relay final, he delivered an anchor leg split of 46.59 seconds, the fastest of any swimmer in the race, helping his team secure the silver medal.
Background
Chalmers was born in Port Lincoln, South Australia to Jodie and Brett Chalmers and is the older brother of Jackson. He is the son of former Australian rules football and premiership player Brett Chalmers. He attended Saint Josephs School Port Lincoln as a young child, on the "Tenison" team. Having moved to Adelaide to pursue better schooling and sporting opportunities, he attended Immanuel College in South Australia.2014–2015
2014 Oceania Championships
Competing as a 15-year-old at his first senior international swimming championships, the 2014 Oceania Swimming Championships in Auckland, New Zealand in May, Chalmers won the gold medal in the 50-metre butterfly with a time of 24.35 seconds, finishing three-tenths of a second ahead of silver medalist in the event Nielsen Vary of New Zealand. He also won the Oceania title and gold medal in the 100-metre freestyle, swimming a time of 50.71 seconds in the final to finish less than two-tenths of a second ahead of second-place finisher Steven Kent of New Zealand. In his other individual events, he placed fourth in the 50 metre freestyle final, with a time of 23.48 seconds, and eighth in the preliminary heats of the 100 metre butterfly with a 56.96 before withdrawing from competing in the final. For his relay events, he won a gold medal as part of the 4×50 metre mixed freestyle relay, splitting a 23.26 for the second leg of the relay in the final, a silver medal leading-off the 4×100 metre freestyle relay in 51.65 seconds in the final, and a gold medal in the 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay, splitting a 50.84 for the third-leg of the finals relay.2014 Summer Youth Olympics
Later in the year, at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in August in Nanjing, China, Chalmers won three bronze medals, one in the 4×100 metre medley relay, one in the 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay, and one in the 4×100 metre mixed medley relay, as well as placing fifth in the 4×100 metre freestyle relay, ninth in the 50 metre butterfly, eleventh in the 50 metre freestyle, fifteenth in the 100 metre freestyle, and not starting the 200 metre freestyle.2015 World Aquatics Championships
On the first day of the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia in early August, Chalmers split a 47.92 for the second leg of the 4×100 metre freestyle relay in the prelims heats, helping achieve a thirteenth-place finish in 3:16.34. For his 47.92 split, he was selected to compete in the 4×100 metre medley relay heats. The eighth and final day, he improved upon that time, swimming a 47.86 for the freestyle leg of the relay to help qualify the relay to the final ranking second with a 3:31.86. For the finals relay, Cameron McEvoy substituted in for Chalmers and all prelims and finals relay team members won a silver medal when the finals relay placed second with a 3:30.08.2015 World Junior Championships
Later the same month, at the 2015 World Junior Swimming Championships in Singapore in late August, Chalmers won three gold medals, three silvers medals, and one bronze medal, medaling in all seven events he competed in. On day one, in his first event, the 4×100 metre freestyle relay, he won a gold medal, splitting a 48.41 for the second leg of the relay in the final to contribute to the winning time of 3:17.39. For his second event, the 4×100 metre mixed medley relay, he split a 47.68 for the freestyle leg of the relay to help achieve a final time of 3:48.27 and win the silver medal. The third day, he helped win the silver medal in the 4×100 metre mixed freestyle relay in 3:28.59, splitting a 48.89 for the second leg of the relay in the final.On the fourth day of competition, Chalmers swam a time of 22.19 seconds in the final of the 50 metre freestyle to win the gold medal, finishing 0.17 seconds ahead of silver medalist in the event Michael Andrew of the United States. Later in the same session, he won a silver medal as part of the 4×200 metre freestyle relay, splitting a 1:50.13 for the third leg of the relay to contribute to the finals relay time of 7:17.76. In his second to last event, on the sixth and final day of competition, he won the gold medal in the 100 metre freestyle with a Championships record time of 48.47 seconds, breaking the record of 48.87 seconds set by Pedro Spajari of Brazil the day before. Concluding the Championships, he won a bronze medal in the 4×100 metre medley relay, contributing a split of 48.38 for the freestyle leg of the relay to finish in 3:40.21.
2016–2018
2016 Summer Olympics
At the 2016 Olympic Trials, Chalmers qualified for the Olympics by finishing second in the 100 metre freestyle, behind Cameron McEvoy. He broke the junior world record with a time of 48.03.At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Chalmers became the first Australian to win the gold medal in the 100 metre freestyle since Michael Wenden in 1968, doing so in a new world junior record time of 47.58 seconds and finishing over two tenths of a second ahead of silver medalist Pieter Timmers of Belgium and bronze medalist Nathan Adrian of the United States. He had also swum the fastest time in the heats, with his 47.90 breaking his own junior world record. Additionally, he broke the world junior record he set in the prelims heats at 47.90 by swimming a 47.88 in the semifinals. In the 4×100 metre freestyle relay, he contributed to Australia taking a bronze medal, first splitting a 47.04 for the second leg of the relay in the prelims, then splitting a 47.38 for the second leg in the final. In the 4×100 metre medley relay final, he had the fastest split of the field with a time of 46.72, which helped the team to win the bronze medal. Historically only Pieter van den Hoogenband and Cameron McEvoy had been faster in textile swimwear.