To see all of our 2022 Swammy Awards, click here.
2022 FEMALE BREAKOUT SWIMMER OF THE YEAR: MARRIT STEENBERGEN (NED)
22-year-old Marrit Steenbergen of the Netherlands reintroduced herself to the world this year. The Dutch freestyle ace put up some of the best times of her career since coming onto the elite international racing scene seven years ago at the 2015 European Games.
Steenbergen began her successful 2022 campaign with a critical freestyle anchor on her nation’s mixed medley relay at the Long Course World Championships. In Budapest, Steenbergen unleashed a split of 52.55 to easily check in as the fastest female in the field, helping the Dutch squad secure bronze behind the United States and Australia.
That turned out to be just the appetizer for Steenbergen’s main entree she would serve at the European Championships in Rome. Steenbergen wound up topping the podium in the individual 100 and 200 freestyle events while also snagging silver in the 200 IM.
In terms of relays in Rome, Steenbergen proved clutch in the Netherlands’ gold Euros medal-winning performances in the women’s 4x200m free relay and the 4x100m mixed medley, while also contributing to the nation’s bronze medals in the women’s 4x100m free and 4x100m medley relays.
In long course, Steenbergen reset her best time in all four of her primary events in 2022:
- 50 free – 24.89 (Rotterdam Qualification Meet)
- 100 free – 53.24 (European Championships)
- 200 free – 1:56.36 (European Championships)
- 200 IM – 2:10.60 (World Championships)
But Steenbergen was far from finished, with the Short Course World Championships yet to conquer.
In Melbourne, she took on the tough double of the 100m free final/100m IM semi-final on the same night and ultimately wound up with a medal in each.
For the 1free, Steenbergen ripped a time of 51.25 for a new personal best and enough for bronze. That result rendered her the Netherlands’ #2 performer of all time, only behind retired Olympic champion Ranomi Kromowidjojo.
She wound up on top of the podium in the 100m IM, claiming gold in a time of 57.53, a new national record.
Over the course of the meet, Steenbergen managed to wrangle up a bronze medal performance in the 200m freestyle while also serving as anchor on the Netherlands’ bronze medal-garnering mixed 4x50m free relay.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
- Lara van Niekerk, RSA: The winner of the 2022 Swammy for African Female of the Year, Lara van Niekerk, won individual medals at the World Championships (50m), Commonwealth Games and Short Course World Championships this year. In Budapest, 19-year-old van Niekerk earned the bronze medal in the 50 breast in a time just off the 29.72 national record she produced in April. At the Commies, van Niekerk improved to take both the 50m breast and 100 breast gold medals. She ended her year by breaking her own African Record in the 50 breast over the course of the Short Course World Championships, ultimately snagging silver in a time of 29.09.
- Mollie O’Callaghan, AUS: 18-year-old Mollie O’Callaghan raced lights out the entire year, accumulating 20 medals across the World Championships (50m), Commonwealth Games and Short Course World Championships. She was a critical member of five Australian relay teams which broke World Records and fired off splits to the tune of 52.03 on the LCM 4x100m free relay and 1:54.80 on the LCM 4x200m free relay. Splits in Melbourne included a 52.19 on the 4x100m free relay, 1:52.83 split on the 800 free relay and a 25.49 backstroke lead-off on the 4×50 medley relay.
Previous Winners:
- 2021 Swammy – Lydia Jacoby, United States
- 2020 Swammy — Kasia Wasick, Poland
- 2019 Swammy — Maggie MacNeil, Canada
- 2018 Swammy — Wang Jianjiahe, China
- 2017 Swammy — Kylie Masse, Canada
- 2016 Swammy — Penny Oleksiak, Canada
- 2015 Swammy — Bronte Campbell, Australia
- 2014 Swammy — Sharon van Rouwendaal, Netherlands
LOL!!!
lol
Very bizarre. Some of these swimmers are losing more competitions on SwimSwam than they did in the pool
I believe both Lydia Jacoby and Penny Oleksiak won the female junior swimmer and female breakout swimmers of the year in 2016 and 2021 respectively so there is a precedent for this to happen. MOC and Summer both would have been deserving winners as well.
I’m certainly a fan of Steenbergen, though I really don’t know what criteria could justify putting her ahead of MOC.
I think others have said enough, so I’ll compare PB’s, considering there is a 4 year difference in favour of Steenbergen.
50 free:
Steenbergen – 24.89
MOC – 24.52
100 free:
Steenbergen – 53.24
MOC – 52.49
200 free:
Steenbergen – 1:56.36
MOC – 1:54.01
Quite the difference, now the sprint 50 favours the more mature swimmer, what else favours maturity? SCM.
(SCM)
50 free:
Steenbergen – 24.41
MOC – 24.40 (16) 23.71 (ideal conversion from LCM) ~24 flat realistically
100 free:
Steenbergen – 51.25
… Read more »
Yeah and this isn’t even mention Mollie’s 5 world records this year.
This decision is very bizarre.
The one area where Marrit is ahead for now is SCM relays. MOC has her covered in LCM relay splits and was part of all those WR relays, so yeah. Both her 52.03 anchor in the mixed 4×100 free at Budapest and her 25.49 OC record/#2 swimmer all time leadoff in the 4×50 medley in Melbourne were really nice relay legs for the respective WR’s. Marrit was able to carry hard at EC’s, where her biggest rival was Freya Anderson.
Marrit wouldn’t have earned herself a medal at Worlds or Comm Games with her 100 and 200 free times from Euros. Then you look at the top 10 performances this year in the 100 free and Mollie owns 6, all of them 52s (for comparison Manuel has that many 52s in her whole career!)
the only criteria I can think of that you could possibly argue is maybe their respective world rankings last year vs this year eg. in the 100 free Mollie went from #15 to #1 while Marrit went from #135 to #9
I fully agree with you that Molly had a better year overall.
But that’s not what this award is about.
In the Breakout category, there is a balance between how good of a year an athlete had, and the amplitude of their improvement.
Mollie 2021-2022:
100 free
2021: 53.08
2022: 52.49
Marrit 2021:2022
100 free
2021: 55.16
2022: 53.24
Marrit had one swim, a prelims relay leg, at the Olympics. Given the fields, if you said “I think Mollie is going to win these medals,” everyone on January 1 would have said “yeah that sounds about right.”
If you said “I think MS is going to win two individual European titles and individual SC… Read more »
Improvement from 53.08 to 52.49 is more impressive than 55.16 to 53.24 when Marrit’s PB was already 53.97. In the 200 they both improved their PBs by about a second but it’s more impressive to go from 1:55.11 to 1:54.01 than Marrit’s 1:57.28 to 1:56.36. By not using her PBs it feels a bit like you’re rewarding Marrit for how far she regressed before eventually breaking through.
Perhaps a better name for this award would be “most surprising swimmer of the year”.
Marrit went 25.27/53.97/1:58.99 at the 2015 European Games as a 15 year old. And let us not forget that Mollie was ranked as only the prospective #57 for this year by this site. Yes Marrit was unranked, but she did show that she had this potential back then.
Nobody here predicted Mollie to win an individual world title this year, she did, and that is well beyond anything Marrit did outside of her 100IM win, which was good, being =4th fastest athlete ever, but that is a very niche event compared to the LC 100 free.
Mollie made big improvements in the 200 free, LCM 50 backstroke and SCM 50/100 backstroke as well, also this is the first year of… Read more »
I think there’s also something to be said about the pressure/expectations mollie had to perform heading into lcm worlds, the aus team and aus media had expectations to collect a lot of medals especially after the success of last year and the first place you look for them are at your previous medallists and titmus/mckeon/campbell/seebohm/jack mcloughlin all weren’t going for various reasons, kyle ended up going but didn’t swim the 100 free, kaylee scratched the 100 back for the 200im, and then theres all the expectation on the women’s relays despite the key absences on them and because mollie swam a lot of great pb’s at trials she was suddenly the chosen one to be the star on all the… Read more »
Yeah, I know I sound like a bitter Aussie, but MOC takes it for me.
You’ve got to take into account that Steenbergen had already swam a 53:97 back in 2015.
This year was a huge breakout for MOC. From a heat relay swimmer in 2021 to LC world champion in 2022 and CG gold medalist defeating the Olympic champion, capped off by 5 relay world records across short and long course in the year.
Steenbergen had a fabulous year, but MOC’s was better!
Oh I thought Mollie O Callaghan would definitely win this award after her breakout year winning world champs in Budapest .
Coming up with a clear definition of what constitutes a “break-out” performance or year and its parameters (ie what level of prior international experience or stature) is the material that would keep a battalion of lawyers happily employed for decades !!
AM very surprised by the absence of any US candidates although this does get back to the “how do we define break-out” question. Would have thought the likes of Huske, Walsh, maybe Hayes and Curzan would have been worthy of consideration particularly given Steenbergen has been on the international scene since RioWhat about Summer McIntosh ? She made a mark in Tokyo BUT had 0 top level intl medals before BudapestGiven her SC Worlds, Douglass would seemingly have a… Read more »
(Just a small detail: Summer McIntosh did win an international medal before budapest… silver in the 400 free at 2021 SC worlds)
Happy to stand corrected !!
Steenbergen had a great year but choosing her over Mollie is totally baffling. Even if you ignore all the relays it should still be Mollie.
McIntosh doesn’t get this because she got the junior award?
Agreed
It’s like you don’t hear yourself?
When you stomp your feet everytime Australia doesn’t win everything, people stop listening to you. HTH.
You must be confusing me with someone else. If McIntosh were elligible she should’ve won this but seems she was a mention last year and Ledecky should win Swimmer of the Year despite the complaints of many other Australians.
How about instead of attacking me you explain to me how Steenbergen had a better year.
Summer brokeout last year right? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them list a “breakout” two years in a row.
https://swimswam.com/2021-swammy-awards-female-breakout-swimmer-of-the-year-lydia-jacoby/
Very strange
I assumed Summer would be ineligible due to being an honourable mention last year, I’m not really surprised Marrit won I’m kind of more surprised that Mollie got an honourable mention, I thought the argument would be that they consider Tokyo to be Mollie’s breakout (even though national depth meant she was only a prelim’s relay swimmer even though she was swimming times that showed she was much better than that and then that it was her only swimming in prelims relays that stopped her from getting an honourable mention last year)
Schoenmaker got an honourable mention last year after winning double gold at 2018 Comm Games so I don’t know why swimming relay prelims last year would disqualify Mollie this year.
MOC and summer had their break outs by setting a wjr and getting fourth on the biggest stage. Marrit had little to speak of individually internationally but now she has golds from euros and worlds while cementing herself as the future of Dutch swimming and a solid finalist
If MOC had her breakout year last year as you say then she shouldn’t even be included in honourable mentions for this year? The logic wouldn’t make sense … how many years of breakouts can she be eligible, for?