It was an unusual position for the swimmer to be in, missing her first Australian Trials in a decade.

Instead, McKeon was back home in Wollongong, where she saw her name added to a second tile on the Olympians and Paralympians Wall.

"It's odd," she said. "This is the first one I've missed in 10 years, so it's strange.

"I watched some of my teammates do heats this morning and the 100m free was on, so it's weird not to be there racing but I'm not quite ready to race yet."

It was her exploits in Tokyo that gave McKeon the opportunity to miss the Australian Trials, swimming officials providing all individual medallists automatic selection for the Commonwealth Games.

After winning seven medals in Japan, McKeon took three months off. Back training, she's determined to manage her body to ensure she returns to the Olympics in Paris 2024.

"I only came back to training six-or-seven weeks ago, so I wasn't quite ready to race at trials" she said. "They've got automatic selection for the Commonwealth Games. This is the first time they've done that and it's really good.

"It's really necessary because you train so hard and to achieve an Olympic medal is a huge thing. You work so hard to get there, to keep going and to keep replicating that every year is quite hard. To keep someone in the sport for a long time is also quite hard, so it's really good they've done this."

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