This past year showered the swimming community with a wealth of excitement as the swimming community celebrated boundaries being broken across several major national and international meets, including the 2018 Pan Pacific and European Championships. Swimming World continued to produce iconic covers throughout the year beginning with Canada’s Kylie Masse and concluding with Great Britain’s Adam Peaty earning Swimming World’s Male World Swimmer of the Year title.
Relive the 2018 Swimming World covers:
Swimming World Magazine Covers in Review – 2018
January 2018
ON THE COVER:
Canada’s Kylie Masse admits that the outstanding performances at the Rio Olympics by their women’s team gave them the confidence to do even greater things. After blowing away the Canadian record in the women’s 100 meter backstroke in 2016 (58.76 to tie for an Olympic bronze medal), Masse, who will turn 22 later this month (Jan. 18), clocked 58.10 at the World Championships last summer to knock off Gemma Spofforth’s 58.12, the last remaining women’s WR from 2009, set during the year of the “super suit.”
[PHOTO BY SIPA USA]
February 2018
ON THE COVER:
Shi Tingmao has quietly become the top female diver in the world, claiming Swimming World’s Female Diver of the Year award three straight years—winning nearly half of the annual honors since the award’s inception in 2011. Similarly, since 2010 when FINA first recognized the best female diver in the world, Shi won in 2015, 2016 and 2017 to become the first diver to capture three consecutive titles.
[PHOTO BY GIORGIO PEROTTINO/DEEPBLUEMEDIA/INSIDEFOTO ]
March 2018
ON THE COVER:
To many swimming fans, Louisville’s Mallory Comerford is, perhaps, remembered as the swimmer who tied Katie Ledecky for first in the 200 yard free at last year’s women’s NCAAs. To her teammates and coaches, she’s probably known more as the ultimate team player—quick to credit everyone but herself after a triumph and one who thinks of her teammates as family. In just the last two years, Comerford has won eight World Championship medals—seven gold and one silver—all on relays!
[PHOTO BY PETER H. BICK ]
April 2018
ON THE COVER:
Stanford will be shooting for back-to-back titles–and its sixth in the last eight years– at the women’s NCAA Water Polo Championships, May 11-13, at USC. Leading the way are Aria and Makenzie Fischer and Jordna Raney, who helped Team USA claim gold at last summer’s World Championships. Makenzie Fischer (cover), who also won gold at the 2016 Olympics and 2015 Worlds and Pan Ams, was second on Coach John Tanner’s team last year with 54 goals, the highest total for a Stanford freshman since 2013.
[PHOTO BY HECTOR GARCIA-MOLINA/STANFORD ATHLETICS]
May 2018
ON THE COVER:
Stanford won its second straight national title at the women’s NCAA Division I Swimming and Diving Championships in Columbus, Ohio. This year’s victory was even more dominant, as the Cardinal scored 593 points to win by more than 200. Coach Gregg Meehan’s squad won eight of the 13 individual swimming events and all five relays, and set five NCAA/American/U.S Open records and an additional three meet marks. Of all the Stanford swimmers who swam at this year’s NCAAs, only two freshmen did not score.
[PHOTO BY PETER H. BICK]
June 2018
ON THE COVER:
Katie Ledecky signed with Wasserman Media Group last March and is represented by agent Dan Levy. For nearly a year, she and Stanford women’s head coach Greg Meehan had carefully discussed her decision to forfeit her remaining two years of NCAA in order to turn pro. With two-plus years between now and the 2020 Olympics, they both felt the timing would give Katie enough time to transition into her new lifestyle.
[PHOTO COURTESY: THE LEDECKY FAMILY]
July 2018
ON THE COVER:
Gregg Troy has been the coach of the University of Florida Gators for 20 years and has been one of the pillars of college swimming. So it came as somewhat of a surprise when he announced his retirement from Florida in April. But Troy only retired from the university. He will still lead Gator Aquatics and turn his focus to a group of eight swimmers, including Caeleb Dressel, aiming for the Olympics. With an Olympic-driven focus and time to develop some of the sport’s biggest stars, Troy could help lead Dressel and USA Swimming to a record performance at Tokyo in 2020.
[PHOTO BY JD LASICA]
August 2018
ON THE COVER:
Yorktown High School’s Emily Weiss has won the 100 yard breaststroke three straight years at the Indiana High School State Championships. As a ninth-grader, she won in 1:02.20. The next year, she broke Lilly King’s state high school record of 59.63 from 2015 with a 59.37. And this season, she became the fastest prep breaststroker ever with her 58.40 national high school record. It was those 58 seconds of breaststroke that propelled Weiss to this honor: Swimming World’s Female High School Swimmer of the Year.
[PHOTO BY EMILY WEISS]
September 2018
ON THE COVER:
Alex Walsh, Gretchen Walsh, Alex Massey and Ella Nelson (From left to right) of Harpeth Hall School of Nashville, Tenn. clocked 1:38.77 in the girls’ 200 yard medley relay to break the overall national high school record previously set by Carmel (1:39.25) in 2015. A day later they lost the record to Fossil Ridge High School in Colorado. But at the end of the season, the Harpeth Hall girls and their teammates earned a bigger prize: they were named Swimming World’s girls’ national high school team champions!
[PHOTO COURTESY: POLLY LINDEN]
October 2018
ON THE COVER:
This is the look of someone who just set her first world record—pure happiness and joy! When Team Elite’s Kathleen Baker touched the wall at the finish of the women’s 100 meter backstroke at this summer’s U.S. nationals, she looked at the scoreboard, thrust her left arm into the air and spun around 360 degrees. She was in shock at the time she saw: 58.00! “It’s so crazy to be able to look at that time and say that I’m the fastest woman ever in the 100 backstroke,” she said. “It’s a been a goal of mine pretty much my whole life to have a world record.”
[PHOTO BY: PETER H. BICK]
November 2018
ON THE COVER:
The Netherlands’ Sharon van Rouwendaal dominated this year’s European Championships, winning three of the four women’s open water races—5K, 10K and 5K relay event—and grabbing a silver medal in the 25K. She also competed in six of FINA’s Open Water World Series meets, winning one and turning in three top 4 finishes. With her unmatched success in 2018, the 25-year-old Dutch dynamo was named Swimming World’s Female Open Water Swimmer of the Year for the third time, having also won the award in 2014 and 2016.
[PHOTO COURTESY: ANDREA STACCIOLI/DEEPBLUEMEDIA]
December 2018
ON THE COVER:
Adam Peaty, 23, was named Swimming World’s Male World Swimmer of the Year for the second time in his career (2015, 2018). At the European Championships in August, he lowered his world record in the men’s 100 meter breast to 57.10 and came away with four gold medals—becoming Great Britain’s first three-time quadruple champion at that meet. By the end of 2018’s long course season, Peaty held the 11 top times ever swum in the 50 breast and the 14 fastest times ever swum in the 100 breast. (This year’s World and Regional Swimmers of the Year are featured on pages 16-23, with the Top 10 Performances of 2018 highlighted on pages 24-27.)
[PHOTO BY LAPRESSE/ PROVIDED BY ARENA]