To see all of our 2020 Swammy Awards, click here.
2020 Male Open Water Swimmer of the Year: Marc-Antoine Olivier, FRA
The coronavirus pandemic made for a relatively light year for swimming competition in all forms. But Marc-Antoine Olivier won a pair of key races despite the pandemic restrictions.
The FINA Marathon Swimming World Series was canceled after just one stop. But Olivier dominated that single stop. In Doha, Qatar, Olivier swam a 1:49:46.60 for the 10K race, beating the entire field by more than twelve seconds. That’s a huge margin compared to the women’s race, which had three swimmers within two-tenths of a second at the finish.
The 24-year-old French open water specialist also won his home nation’s Open Water Championships in September, once again crushing the Olympic-distance 10K. Olivier beat the field by about four seconds in that one. After taking second in the 10K at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships, Olivier was locked into a berth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and has continued his rise, looking like a true medal threat for the Tokyo Olympics, now postponed one year to the summer of 2021.
Previous Winners:
- 2012 Swammy – Ous Mellouli, Tunisia (Co-Ed Award)
- 2013 Swammy – Thomas Lurz, Germany
- 2014 Swammy – Ferry Weertman, Netherlands
- 2015 Swammy – Jordan Wilimovsky, United States
- 2016 Swammy – Ferry Weertman, Netherlands
- 2017 Swammy – Ferry Weertman, Netherlands
- 2018 Swammy – Kristof Rasovsky, Hungary
- 2019 Swammy – Florian Wellbrock, Germany
- 2020 Swammy – Marc-Antoine Olivier
