'Yes!': Alexa Leary delivers another record-breaking swim, and another golden reaction
BRISBANE: First came another record-breaking swim, and then another priceless reaction.
Queensland swimmer Alexa Leary, the beloved athlete who endeared herself to millions of Australians both at the Paris 2024 trials and the Paralympic Games, lowered her own world record in the S9 100m freestyle on Tuesday.
Surging through the water on day two of the Australian swimming championships at Brisbane Aquatic Centre, Leary clocked 59.22 seconds in the heats of the multi-class 100m freestyle.
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She fell one tenth of a second short of her newly minted world record when she swam again in the final, but any day that produces a world record and a national title is one fine day.
Leary's time of 59.22 bettered the world record she had set en route to winning gold in the event at the Paris Games.
On that day, the Sunshine Coast product broke her own world record twice, touching in 59.60 in the heats and 59.53 in the final.
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As Australia has come to know and love, Leary doesn't only deliver golden swims.
She delivers golden reactions.
On the pool deck after Tuesday's heat, the 23-year-old reacted in brilliant fashion when told she had broken her world record.
Her reaction was captured in a video posted to Swimming Australia's Instagram account.
"I'm not 100 per cent sure [what time I swam], but I think it was a good one!" Leary beams.
"You know it was quicker than your time in Paris?" says the lady with the phone.
"Actually? Did I just beat my record? Yes!" Leary replied, her face awash with joy and amazement.
Alexa Leary on her way to breaking her own world record and (inset) the Paralympic champion's reaction. Delly Carr/Swimming Australia
"Did I actually? Where's Jon [her coach Jon Bell]?" she adds, wanting to see proof of her record-breaking swim.
The video then captures Leary seeing her time. Her face lights up, and a couple of fist pumps follow.
"Yes! That's some good back-end speed, as well. That's not bad!"
Leary is a warrior.
She needed to be to survive an horrific bike crash, and to take the path she's taken since.
The crash left her with a permanent traumatic brain injury (TBI), but she's since become a two-time Paralympic gold medallist, broken world records for fun, and left Australia besotted with her.
Few athletes in Australian sport are more marketable than "Lex". Basking in the afterglow of her sparkling Paris campaign, she did a lap of honour ahead of the AFL grand final, and lit up the Melbourne Cup as an ambassador of Lexus.
"It felt so good to break that world record and I was confident that I could [do it again]," Leary said after Tuesday's final.
"I know all the hard work I've done since Paris so I said to myself, 'Come on, Lex. You've got to bring something home'.
"I've really worked on my back-end speed with my coach Jon, so in that last 50m I was hurting hard and going for it.
"I'm like a tenth of a second off [the world record], and that hurt a little bit, but now I've just got to double down and get it next time.
"Every day I challenge myself, especially in swimming."