When Kai Taylor received his Australian Dolphin cap number #852 at a team ceremony at the Royal Chester Hotel in Saga last week, he became part of a generational dynasty that Australian swimming has not seen before.
In the 851 swimmers that had worn the green and gold before him, not one has been the son of a female Australian Dolphin. And so, before the nineteen-year-old had even taken to the water in Fukuoka, Taylor and his mother, Australian Dolphin #390 Hayley Lewis, were already creating history. A mother and son - both Australian Dolphins – and after day one of competition at the Marine Messe Hall A in Fukuoka, both World Aquatics Championships gold medalists.
When Lewis won her maiden world title at the 6th World Aquatics Championships in Perth in 1991, it broke a gold medal drought for the island nation that stretched back twelve years to Tracey Wickham’s 400m and 800m Freestyle double at the 3rd World Aquatics Championships in Berlin.
By the time the sixteen-year-old claimed gold in the 200m Freestyle at the 1991 championships, beating United States of America legend Janet Evans in the process, Lewis was already a five-time Commonwealth Games gold medalist and a hot prospect for Olympic gold at the Barcelona Olympics the following year.
Taylor’s maiden World Aquatics Championships gold medal came quicker than anyone could have expected and on a night that became Australia’s most successful single session at a World Aquatics Championships.
On Sunday morning the St Peters Western club swimmer took to the pool for his first-ever swim at a senior international competition. By late in the evening, he was standing atop the podium as part of an Australian relay team on a night of dominance for the green and gold. Standing alongside Jack Cartwright, Flynn Southam and Kyle Chalmers, Taylor had won his first gold medal at a World Aquatics Championships before his individual events had even started.
However, despite their different paths to winning World Aquatics Championships gold, there are some unique similarities between the two, including both gold medals being a combination of extremely hard work in the training pool and a bit of ‘good old Australian luck’.
For Lewis, it was the withdrawal of teammate Julie McDonald at the 1991 World Aquatic Championships in Perth. Lewis had placed third in qualifying behind McDonald and Nicole Redford, with Lewis herself at the time considering her 200m Freestyle to be her weakest event. When McDonald pulled out of the 200m Freestyle to concentrate on her distance events, Lewis was elevated as second qualifier, and the rest is history.
For Taylor, it was the withdrawal of Kyle Chalmers from the final of the 200m Freestyle at the Australian Swimming Trials in Melbourne last month that opened the door to his international career. A desolate Taylor had finished ninth in the semi finals the night before at his first real opportunity to make an Australian Team. But a withdrawal from Chalmers elevated Taylor to eighth, and like his mother in 1991, the rest is history.
Both also did their best work on those nights from out in the gutters in lane eight. For Lewis, it was her maiden world title that came in the most unexpected of lanes on the outside of the pool at the Claremont Superdome in Perth. For Taylor, it was the outside lane at the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre in the southern Australian city – as he powered home to finish first in the final ahead of fellow Queensland youngster Flynn Southam. Both Lewis and Taylor’s father Greg were in the stands in Melbourne watching the action unfold.
And now, with Taylor’s relay medal hanging around his neck, both mother and son will also share a special bond with the Japanese city. For Taylor, it’s the start of what will no doubt be an incredible career as an Australian Dolphin, the first of many meets for one of the future stars of Australian swimming. And for Lewis, Fukuoka marked the end of a career that saw her win two Olympic medals, eleven Commonwealth Games medals and six World Championships medals – with the very last international medal of her career – a bronze at the World Aquatics Championships in the 5km Open Water in 2001 – of course, in Fukuoka.