He attended Indooroopilly State Primary School and graduated from Brisbane Boys' College in the inner city suburb of Toowong.

He began swimming regularly at age eight as part of his rehabilitation from a serious leg injury incurred after running through a plate glass window.

[3] At age 13 his potential became obvious, and with coach John Carew guiding him he won his first medal at the Australian Championships in Melbourne in 1989.

There was much expectation around Perkins at the 1991 World Aquatics Championships in Perth in the 1500 m freestyle, but he was beaten in the final by just 0.22 seconds by German Jörg Hoffmann who set a new world-record time.

Russian Yevgeny Sadovyi representing the Unified Team won the race in a world record time.

[3] At the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, Perkins won four gold medals in the 200 m, 400 m, 1500 m and 4 x 200 m freestyle relay all in world record time.

[3] His 400 m and 1500 m world records made that year stood until 1999 and 2001 respectively, broken by fellow Australians Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett.

[4] At the time of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Perkins was out of form and long-time Australian rival Daniel Kowalski was regarded as the favourite.

[5] From lane eight, Perkins dominated the race being the only swimmer to go under 15 minutes (14:56.40), again relegating Kowalski, who had to fight all the way and just held off Graeme Smith.

[1] Perkins carried the flag at the opening ceremony for the 1998 Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur.

With the nickname of Super Fish, Perkins retired from swimming in 2000, at age 27, having amassed 23 medals at international competitions.

[10] Also in 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Kieren Perkins was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as a "sports legend".

[18] Perkins is an outspoken critic of the so-called "Enhanced Games", an Olympic-style sports competition that would permit doping, saying in March 2024 at a SportNXT conference in Melbourne: "Someone will die if we allow that sort of environment to continue to foster and flourish.