2023 Swammy Awards: European Female Swimmer of the Year – Ruta Meilutyte, Lithuania

See all of our 2023 Swammy Awards here.

2023 European Female Swimmer of the Year: Ruta Meilutyte, Lithuania

In 2022, we named Ruta Meilutyte as the inaugural winner of the “Comeback Award”. Last year was her first full year of competition since retiring at age 22. It was a highly successful year for her; she broke the SCM 50 breaststroke world record, won multiple medals at both the Budapest World Championships and Rome European Championships, and tore through the FINA World Cup series with Triple Crowns in the 50 and 100 breaststroke.

This year, she picked up where she left off in 2022 with another excellent season. She kicked off her 2023 World Championships with the 100 breaststroke, where she claimed gold ten years after her first World Championships gold medal in 2013. Meilutyte flirted with the world record line in both prelims and finals. In the final, she was out under world record pace at the halfway point (29.80), then held off a stacked field that included the last three Olympic champions: herself (2012), Lilly King (2016), and Lydia Jacoby (2020).

Her winning time of 1:04.62 is the 8th fastest performance in history and her prelims time of 1:04.67 ranks 9th. Her Fukuoka performance in the 100 breast is also a prime example of how she’s upped her game from 2022 to 2023. Meilutyte showed last year that she is one of the best 50 breaststrokers in the world and that stayed the same this year (more on that later). But in the 100 breast, she upgraded from bronze in 2022 to gold in 2023 against a much deeper field than the one in Budapest.

Of course, her biggest fireworks came at the end of the meet in the 50 breaststroke.

In semifinals, she equalled Benedetta Pilato‘s world record (29.30). Then, she took the record for herself in finals, blowing past the previous world record in 29.16–her second world record in two days. It was her second World Championship title of the week and her .78 second margin of victory over King is the largest in a women’s Worlds 50-meter event final.

Courtesy: World Aquatics

Meilutyte had been knocking at the door of reclaiming that world record since her return to the sport. She scared it the 2022 European Championships, swimming 29.44 for gold and a personal best. Less than a year later, she finally hit the mark, adding another chapter to her impressive comeback story.

Illness prevented her from completing the 50 breaststroke Triple Crown at the World Cup. But at the first stop of the series in Berlin, she broke 30 seconds once again, powering to a new World Cup record of 29.56 in Berlin.

One of the best parts about a world record is that it makes us rethink what’s possible for an event. How far can swimmers push the limits of the body? With her 50 breaststroke world record, Meilutyte took the conversation a step further: is a sub-29 second 50 breaststroke possible?

The 50 breaststroke is not on the Olympic slate and like last year, the 26-year-old has been quiet about her plans for next season. But part of what made this season so successful for Meilutyte is that in addition to her dominance in the 50 breaststroke, she also showed improvements in her 100 breast. So if she shows up in Paris, she’ll surely be in the medal conversation–12 years after she surprised for Olympic gold.

Honorable Mentions:

• Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden — Sarah Sjostrom, a 4x winner of this Swammy Award, also had a superlative season, continuing to show that she remains one of the most dominant forces in women’s sprinting. She was a huge part of the reason why the pool felt like it was on fire during the seventh night at 2023 Worlds. She claimed gold in the 50 butterfly (24.77). Then, 17 minutes later, she lowered her own 50 freestyle world record by six-hundredths with a blazing 23.61. One day later she collected the gold medal (23.62), passing Michael Phelps for most individual World Championship medals. She continued her dominance in the butterfly/freestyle sprints at the World Cup, winning Triple Crowns in both. In Athens, she once again dipped below 25 seconds in the 50 fly for a new World Cup record of 24.97. The
• Evgeniia Chikunova, Russia — Three female European swimmers broke a world record this year. We’ve touched on the other two–Meilutyte and Sjostrom–and Evgeniia Chikunova is the third. The three actually broke their world records in the opposite order than we’ve discussed them; Chikunova set hers at Russian Nationals in April. She smashed the 200 breaststroke world record, taking 1.40 seconds off the mark with a blistering 2:17.55. Coming into the year, she hadn’t broken the 2:20 barrier. At the same meet, she also dipped under 1:05 for the first time in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:04.92 that moved her to 7th all-time.

PAST WINNERS

• 2022 Swammy — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 2021 Swammy – Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 2020 Swammy – Beryl Gastaldello, France
• 2019 Swammy – Katinka Hosszu, Hungary
• 2018 Swammy — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 2017 Swammy — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 2016 Swammy — Katinka Hosszu, Hungary
• 2015 Swammy — Katinka Hosszu, Hungary
• 2014 Swammy — Katinka Hosszu, Hungary