Best Swimming Nations: Women's Sprint Freestyles

Women’s 50 free

This women’s 50 free has a ton of concentrated power. The vast majority of the top 30 swimmers in the world in 2011 came from just a small handful of countires, and the exceptions were from very non-traditional swimming powers. Still, this one was a total runaway for the Dutch women with 5 swimmers standing in the world’s 21-fastest last year. And of course historically, they claim Inge de Bruijn, who took gold at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics in the event, and is still the fastest woman ever in textile.

The American sprint group didn’t have a great year in 2011, but if you include 2010, they’re an obvious choice for second. Australia is giving them a good push though, especially if former World Record holder Libby Trickett comes anywhere close to her old form upon her full-blown return. There are quite a few “minor” countries on this list, including Sweden and Belarus.

Germany has the World Record holder, Britta Steffen, in their lineup, but has done a decent job of building off of her success with some improving depth. Canada is rising, with the young Chantal Van Landeghem leading the way on combination with National Record holder Victoria Poon, They don’t have a ton of history in the event (they’ve never put a swimmer higher than 10th in the event at the Olympics).

Women’s 100 Free

This one was a much tighter selection than the 50. Yes, the Dutch have been winning the major relays (the last Olympic gold, the last two World Championships) involving the 100 free, but unlike the 50 free, the power at the top isn’t quite strong enough to overcome the American depth. Femke Heemskerk, despite failing to medal in Shanghai, is probably the best in the world in this event right now. However, the USA (especially on the back of Missy Franklin’s emergence) has a ton of moving parts to account for swimmers having a bad meet. The USA has 17 swimmers who have gone 55.2 or better in this 100 free in 2011.

The next-closest country to that total is Australia with 12 (though they lack the firepower at the top, with only Alicia Coutts ranking in the world’s top-15), and the Dutch have only 5. Don’t forget that the Australians have three-time World Record breaker in this event Libby Lenton in the fold as well. The Chinese women haven’t been great this year, but they’ve got too much history and depth to drop below 4th in the rankings.

Denmark is taking huge strides in this 100 free, and scored 8th in the relay at World’s, but aren’t quite to the point where they can crack the top-10 yet. Aside from the co-World Champion from Shanghai in the event (Jeanette Ottesen), they are developing a strong young corps of sprinters including Pernille Blume (17) and Mie Nielsen (just turned 15 yesterday), but when the gold medalist in the 1500 (Lotte Friis) is forced onto your sprint free relay, you know there’s still room to grow.

Overall Sprint Rankings

This was a tough tossup between the Dutch and the Americans. I’ll give the tiebreaker to the Netherlands based on Inge de Bruijn being probably the greatest sprinter we’ve ever seen. After that the choices become pretty easy. China was the interesting case, given that their freestylers tend towards the 100/200 combination than the 50/100 combination.