2025 Swammy Awards: European Female Swimmer of the Year — Marrit Steenbergen

See all of our 2025 Swammy Awards here.

The 2025 swimming calendar did not have as many major events as last year, which had the Olympics, a long course World Championships, and a short course World Championships on top of other meets, but it still had a few noteworthy events.

While the World Championships was the biggest meet of the year, Dutch superstar Marrit Steenbergen, our winner for the 2025 European Female Swimmer of the Year Award, won primarily based on her performance at the 2025 SC European Championships earlier this month.

Steenbergen was coming into the year off a disappointing Olympic Games in 2024, where she missed winning a medal in any event after she came into the meet as the top seed in the 100 free. She also missed advancing to the semifinals in the 200 IM, adding more than four seconds to finish 20th in prelims.

She took an extended break from swimming after the Games, only practicing in the pool three times a week combined with three 90-minute gym sessions a week until November.

She came into 2025 strong, and blasted a huge 52.77 in the 100 free in May at the AP Race London International, which was just the start of what she would do during 2025.

At the World Championships in July, she dropped the 200 free and 200 IM from her schedule for the first time since 2022, opting instead to focus on the 50 free and 100 back on top of her best event, the 100 free.

Steenbergen went on to win the 100 freestyle in a season best 52.55, coming in about a tenth ahead of Australia’s Mollie O’Callaghan, who swam 52.67 for the silver medal. This was one of two medals she won at the meet with her 2nd medal coming from the women’s 400 freestyle relay, where she pulled the Dutch team into the bronze medal after splitting 51.64, the 4th fastest split in history, to out split every other anchor leg in the field.

She had two other sub-52 second splits at the meet, coming in at 51.91 to anchor the mixed 400 medley relay finals and 51.94 on the prelims of the mixed 400 free relay.

Steenbergen continued to improve from there. She swam at all three World Cup Stops, ultimately finishing 14th overall in the prize money standings with $13,400. She got better at each stop swimming entirely new personal best times in Toronto to finish 2nd in the 100 IM and 3rd in the 50 and 100 free.

Her performance of the year came just a few weeks ago at the SC World Championships where she was as close to perfect as she could be without breaking World Records. She swam four individual events over the course of the meet, winning all four and setting new European Records in each.

She started on day three of the meet with a win and ER in the 100 IM final, taking down swimming legend Katinka Hosszu‘s former record time of 56.51 to touch in 56.26. She followed that performance up a little more than an hour later by taking down another legend Sarah Sjostrom 200 freestyle ER, touching in 1:50.33 to come in a tenth under Sjostrom’s 1:50.43.

On day five, she did it again. She started with a monster swim in the 200 IM to touch in 2:01.83, taking down Hosszu’s former record time of 2:01.86 by just three hundredths to become the 2nd fastest performer in history in the event.

Again, just over an hour later, she swam the 100 free in 50.42 to take down Sjostrom’s former ER time of 50.58 to go 4-for-4.

Despite being done with her individual events, Steenbergen was not done there. On the final night of the meet, she broke a 5th European Record in the women’s 50 backstroke leading off the Dutch 200 medley relay. She swam 25.47 to drop more than three seconds from her previous best time, and breaking Sara Curtis’ former record of 25.49 from earlier in the session.

The 2025 SC European Championships was a huge meet for Steenbergen, and if it was any indication of what we can expect from her over the next two-and-a-half years until 2028, we are in for an exciting few years and potentially more European or even World Records.

Honorable Mentions

• Simona Quadarella, Italy — Simona Quadarella did not win any gold medals at the 2025 World Championships, but that was not a testament to her performance, and was rather a testament to the strength of the women’s distance field. She opened the meet with a silver medal in the women’s 1500 freestyle, swimming 15:31.79 to become the 2nd fastest performer in history and set a new European Record in the event, shattering Lotte Friis’s 12-year-old record of 15:38.88 from 2013. She also swam in the women’s 800 freestyle final, one of the best races in swimming history, finishing 4th behind the star-studded podium of Katie Ledecky, Lani Pallister, and Summer McIntosh. Despite not winning a medal in the event, her swim of 8:12.81 was also a European Record, taking down Rebecca Adlington’s 8:14.10 from 2008. At the 2025 European SC Championships, she finished 2nd in the 400 and 800 free and won the 1500 in all new personal best times.
• Anna Elendt, Germany — Germany’s Anna Elendt was one of three European women to win an individual gold medal at the 2025 World Championships. She also became the first German woman to win a gold medal since 2009 when she won the women’s 100 breaststroke final from lane one, touching in 1:05.19 to take four tenths off her previous best time of 1:05.58 from back in 2022. Her win was one of the most shocking performances of the meet with none of SwimSwam’s 504 pick’ems entrants choosing her to win the event. At the 2025 European SC Championships, she won the 200 breast, and finished 4th in the 100 breast and 7th in the 50 breast.

PAST WINNERS

• 2024 Swammy — Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden
• 2023 Swammy — Ruta Meilutyte, Lithuania
• 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