Top Swim Meets to Watch in 2025: World Championships Head to Singapore in July
The post-Olympic year will usher in a new quadrennium, with swimmers aiming to build toward a peak at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Elite swimmers will take varying approaches to 2025, with some of the stars of the Paris Games opting to slowly build back into training while others have already raced at a high level at World Cup meets, the Short Course World Championships and/or the NCAA swimming circuit.
We don’t know what results to expect next year, but we do know the major dates to circle in which top honors will be on the line. Here is a preview of the biggest events on swimming’s calendar.
1. NCAA Women’s Championships, March 19-22 — Federal Way, Wash.
The University of Virginia will be aiming for a fifth consecutive national title in women’s swimming and diving this March, with sisters Alex and Gretchen Walsh each competing in the meet for the final time. Alex has captured eight individual NCAA titles in her career while Gretchen has six, and she has rewritten the record books in short course yards during her Cavaliers career while also destroying short course meters world records at the recent Short Course World Championships in Budapest.
Additionally, Olympic champion Torri Huske returns to lead the team from Stanford while individual Olympic medalists Katie Grimes (Virginia), Emma Weyant (Florida) and Mona McSharry (Tennessee) are all expected to race.
2. NCAA Men’s Championships, March 26-29 — Federal Way, Wash.
The team title will be up for grabs at the men’s meet as the Cal Bears, top-two finishers at this meet every year since 2010, will try to reclaim the title and fend off a Texas team that has reloaded in Bob Bowman’s first year at the helm. Texas will feature two of the meet’s top individual stars in 200-meter back Olympic champion Hubert Kos plus 200 free bronze medalist Luke Hobson, with Rex Maurer in the midst of a breakout campaign and American relay medalist Chris Guiliano joining the team at midyear.
Cal counters with American-record holder and five-time individual champion Destin Lasco, sprinters Jack Alexy and Bjorn Seeliger, 200 back Olympic finalist Keaton Jones and veterans Dare Rose and Gabriel Jett. Olympic medalists Ilya Kharun (Arizona State), Josh Liendo (Florida) and Caspar Corbeau (Indiana) will all compete, as will short course world champion and world-record holder Jordan Crooks (Tennessee).
3. U.S. National Championships, June 3-7 — Indianapolis
The primary selection meet for the United States will take place in Indianapolis for the third consecutive year, returning to the famed Indiana University Natatorium after last year’s Olympic Trials showcase at nearby Lucas Oil Stadium. As is traditional for non-Olympic selection meets in the U.S., this one will only include prelims and finals as USA Swimming looks to assemble a squad capable of winning a big medal haul at the World Championships.
In a change to normal selection procedures, this will be the last official selection meet for the U.S. until 2027, with swimmers attending the 2026 Pan Pacific Championships likely to be selected based on times from this national meet, the World Championships and select other 2025 competitions.
4. Canadian Swimming Trials, June 7-12 — Victoria, B.C.
The Canadian selection meet has become much-watch thanks largely to Summer McIntosh, the female star of the Paris Olympics as a three-time individual champion in the 400 IM, 200 butterfly and 200 IM. McIntosh has broken world records at this meet each of the last two years, with new standards in the 400 free and 400 IM in 2023 before again beating her 400 IM mark last year.
5. Swimming Australia World Championship Trials, Location TBA — June 16-21
We will get a sense of what sort of team Australia will send to Singapore with this qualification event, set to wrap up just five weeks before the swimming events get underway in Singapore. While three-time Olympian Emma McKeon has retired, none of Australia’s other stars have indicated that they plan to skip the 2025 championship season, suggesting that Olympic champions Kaylee McKeown, Ariarne Titmus, Mollie O’Callaghan, Cameron McEvoy, Zac Stubblety-Cook and Kyle Chalmers will all be in attendance.
6. World Aquatics Championships, July 11-August 3 (Swimming: July 27-August 3) — Singapore
The most prestigious competition of the year will take place in Southeast Asia for the first time, and this will mark the chance for winners of Olympic gold at the Paris Olympics to back up their titles and set the tone for dominance in the new quad. We can also expect to see some new stars emerge; it was the World Championships one year following the Tokyo Games that introduced Leon Marchand and Summer McIntosh to the world, with both winning their first two world titles at the 2022 global meet.
In recent cycles, the United States has performed extremely well at the post-Olympic edition of the World Championships. In 2017, the American team won 18 gold medals and 38 total medals, and the 2022 group exceeded that with 45 podium finishes, although many top international competitors skipped that meet.
7. European Short Course Championships, December 2-7 — Szczecin, Poland
The only short course meters meet on the list will take place in December, and after 30 world records were broken at the 2024 Short Course World Championships, we could more records fall at the European showcase meet in that format. The meet is returning to Szczecin, Poland, for the first time since 2011.