Women’s Swimming Revamp: What Events Are Awaiting New Rising Stars
Scan through the women’s results from the pool swimming competition at the Paris Olympics, and you will find plenty of big names entering or in the midst of their prime: Canada’s Summer McIntosh, the only woman to win three individual golds, was 17 during the Games before turning 18 in August. Among Australian golden trio, Mollie O’Callaghan is 20 years old, Kaylee McKeown is 23 and Ariarne Titmus just turned 24. For the United States, Torri Huske, Kate Douglass, Regan Smith and Gretchen Walsh are all 21 or 22.
It would be no surprise to see any of these women winning multiple medals again in four years in Los Angeles. In some events, however, longtime stars have signaled their intent to move on from swimming while it remains to be seen how a pair of swimming legends will fare in 2028. Here are some events where we foresee significant change in the coming years:
100 and 200 Breaststroke
Immediately after winning silver in the 200 breast in Paris, South Africa’s Tatjana (Schoenmaker) Smith called it a career. She had already come out on top of the 100 breast at that meet, adding to the incredible two-medal performance she had accomplished three years earlier. Meanwhile, American star Lilly King, who struggled in individual events in Paris but has won global titles in all three breaststroke distances, has said she does not plan to continue through Los Angeles.
Here is a big opportunity, particularly in a 100 breast field that has seen six different winners claim global titles since 2019: King at the 2019 World Championships, Lydia Jacoby at the Tokyo Games, Benedetta Pilato at the 2022 Worlds, Ruta Meilutyte at the global level one year later and Tang Qianting at the February 2024 edition of Worlds before Smith’s victorious Paris effort. Tang, 20, swam the fastest time in the world in the 100 breast this year, nearly knocking off King’s world record, before winning silver in Paris. Pilato, 19, tied for fourth in Paris while Jacoby did not qualify for the U.S. team.
In the 200, Douglass and Tes Schouten move forward as the central players in the event while Russia’s Evgeniia Chikunova, the 19-year-old world-record holder, looks to make an impact whenever Russian swimmers return to international competition. This event was relatively slow in Paris beyond the medal-winning trio of Douglass, Smith and Schouten, but there’s clearly an opportunity for newer swimmers to contend.
Sprint Freestyle
Sarah Sjostrom — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
Sarah Sjostrom was never supposed to win Olympic gold in the 100 free. Surely, a swimmer like O’Callaghan or Siobhan Haughey would get the job done, with Sjostrom, seven years removed from setting the world record in the event, unlikely to even enter. But she decided to do so on a whim, and the result was her finest Olympic performance, with 100-meter gold followed by a dominant effort in the 50 free.
Sjostrom, who turned 31 last month, can’t do this forever… can she? That said, the 100 might not look so different in the coming years, with the group of O’Callaghan, Haughey, Huske, Shayna Jack and Marrit Steenbergen all much younger. As for the 50, perhaps Sjostrom does keep going and stunning the world’s sprinters well into her 30s, but maybe she will finally loosen her grip on the splash-and-dash. Meg Harris impressed in Paris by getting under 23 to grab the silver medal while Jack and Walsh have both built some momentum in this event. Check back in a year or two to see the direction toward which the event is moving.
Distance Freestyle
Will the reign of Katie Ledecky in the 800 and 1500 freestyle last forever? Probably not. Ledecky, 27, has indicated she plans to continue swimming, but she acknowledged she did not know what a potential Olympic lineup would be in four years. Of course, she is still 10 seconds ahead of the world in the 1500 free and without a crop of teenagers chasing her. Titmus and Paige Madden closed the gap on Ledecky in the 800 this year, but once again, there’s no real youth movement here threatening huge time drops. Once again, there’s a strong sense of “we’ll see,” with status updates likely in a year or two.
Meg Harris, 22, is definitely one to watch.
As well as her silver medal in the 50 Free she posted the fastest split of the 4×100 Free (51.94). She has a 100 Free PB of 52.52 and is getting faster every year.