2025 Swammy Awards: World Junior Male Swimmer of the Year – Shin Ohashi

See all of our 2025 Swammy Awards here

N.B. Previously Tatsuya Murasa did not make the HM list, but has now been added – five HMs may be a lot but the field this year was one of the deepest we can remember.

This has been a phenomenal year for men’s junior swimming. We saw six male junior swimmers make a senior world final this year, and that number would have surely been higher had swimmers like Shin Ohashi, Filip Nowacki and Yumeki Kojima been present in Singapore.

One junior swimmer who medalled at senior worlds in Singapore this summer, Tatsuya Murasa, only makes the Honorable Mentions here – despite dropping a second to win 200 free bronze in a new Japanese record of 1:44.54.

That is the level of competition this year. And taking home our World Junior Male Swimmer of the Year award, by a whisker, is Murasa’s countryman Shin Ohashi.

Ohashi was no stranger to international competition despite only turning 16 in March this year. Last summer he won 100 breast/200 breast double at Junior Pan Pacs, notching times of 1:01.08 and 2:10.88 in the respective finals. He was slightly faster in the 100 breast prelims at 1:00.95, and ranked as one of the fastest 15 year olds in history.

He was even faster later on in the year, clicking 2:09.22 in the 200 breast at a domestic meet to become the fastest 15-year-old ever in the event. He added a 1:00.27 in the 100 too, and dropped a 2:04.03 in the SCM 200 breast for good measure – less than a second off Akihiro Yamaguchi’s World Junior record which was just three years younger than Ohashi.

Into 2025, Ohashi has been on a seemingly year-long tear. A stunning Mare Nostrum tour led into a spectacular Japanese high school season, before a World Junior Championships where ran into an in-form Filip Nowacki but still came home with five medals. Short course success came on the World Cup tour this fall, but the meet which ended up defining Ohashi’s year was, ironically, one in which he missed the podium in his favored event.

His first major championship of the year was the Japan National Swimming Championship, where he took home a pair of medals in the 50 and 100 breast before swimming 2:09.35 for 4th in the 200 breast – the fastest time ever by a 16-year-old. That 4th-place finish meant that Ohashi would not be on the team for the senior World Championships in Singapore, but rather would go to the World Junior Championships in Otopeni.

Two months later he showed that he could mix it with the big boys, finishing 2nd in the 200 breast at the Barcelona stop of the Mare Nostrum in 2:09.04, before winning that event four days later in Canet in 2:08.89. A swim of 59.88 in the 100 breast at the latter stop made him the youngest man in history to break the minute barrier – and there was far more to come.

It is a theme of Japanese swimming that many of their swimmers fastest performances come at domestic meets – Kosuke Makino and Tomoyuki Matsushita’s 1:55-point 200 IMs this fall are an example, after they were 1:57-point in the summer – and Ohashi did not buck the trend. His 2:08.89 in Canet-et-Roussillon had made him the fastest 16-year-old in history – the 2:07.27 he swam at the All Osaka High School Swimming Championships made him the fastest junior swimmer in history.

The 1:00.53 he opened that race in translated to a scorching 59.03 in the 100 breast a day later, just 0.02 seconds off Nicolo Martinenghi’s World Junior Record. That also matched the Italian swimmer’s Olympic-winning time the previous summer.

That was not all from Ohashi. There was one final domestic meet before he departed for Otopeni, where he dropped even more time. Going 2:06.91 in the 200 breast made him the 10th-fastest swimmer in history, and the youngest to break 2:07 by more than three years. A World Junior Record of 58.94 came the following day, as he became the first junior swimmer to crack 59 seconds.

Youngest Men To Break 2:07.00, 200 Breast

1. Shin Ohashi (JPN) – 16 Years, 138 Days (2:06.91)
2. Ippei Watanabe (JPN) – 19 Year, 316 Days (2:06.67)
3. Shoma Sato (JPN) – 19 Years, 350 Days (2:06.78)
4. Anton Chupkov (RUS) – 20 Years, 156 Days (2:06.96)
5. Matthew Wilson (AUS) – 20 Years, 229 Days (2:06.67)

Ohashi did not quite hit the same heights at the World Junior Championships, a remarkable statement given he was one of only three male swimmers to win three individual medals. He took silver in the 100 and 200 breast, in 59.50 and 2:07.56 respectively – phenomenal times for a junior swimmer and faster than any other 16-year-old has ever been – but ran into a fellow nominee for this award in Filip Nowacki. A best time of 27.12 in the 50 breast followed on the final day for bronze, less than two tenths of a second off what would have been his third World Junior Record of the year.

Ohashi did show his class on the men’s and mixed 4×100 medley relays, both of which took gold. He split 58.55 and 58.52 respectively, faster than anyone else in Otopeni and faster than all bar three swimmers at the senior World Championships. Five medals made him one of the most successful male swimmers at the championships, behind only Carlos D’Ambrosio, and he is the only breaststroke medalist who will be at the next edition in 2027.

Yet more success came at the World Cup in North America, where Ohashi notched best times of 56.79 in the 100 breast – 2nd all-time among junior swimmers by just 0.13 seconds – and 2:02.03 in the 200 breast.

Top 5 Men’s 18&U SCM 100 Breaststroke Performers All-Time

1. Simone Cerasuolo (ITA) – 56.66, 2021
2. Shin Ohashi – 56.79, 2025
3. Chris Smith – 57.11, 2024
4. Nicolo Martinenghi – 57.27, 2017
5. Filip Nowacki – 57.36, 2025

The latter shattered the World Junior Record by 0.99 seconds, vaulting Ohashi up to 22nd all-time in the event and nearly a second faster than #2 junior Nowacki at the year’s end.

Back in long course, Ohashi capped his year with a 2:06.96 200 breast, faster than the time Qin Haiyang won gold in this summer at the World Championships (2:07.41) and just 0.05 seconds off Ohashi’s own best, and added a PB of 27.01 in the 50 breast and a 59.38 100 breast. He will be the absolute favorite in the 200 at Pan Pacs next year and will still be a junior at the World Championships in Budapest the year after. The World Junior Records he set this year are unlikely to stand for long – if only because he looks destined to break them himself.

Honorable Mentions:

• Filip Nowacki: The winner this year truly was a close-run thing, with Nowacki getting the better of Ohashi in both the 100 and 200 breast at the World Junior Championships. The British swimmer, who trains at Millfield under Euan Dale and then Keiron Piper after Dale moved to the Aquatics GB Performance Program this summer, dropped from 1:01.13 to 59.20 in the 100 breast and 2:12.74 to 2:07.32 in the 200 breast. That shattered the British Junior Record at both distances and also took down the 200 breast European Junior Record, as he took gold in the 100 and 200 breast at the World Junior Championships. He also won both events at the European Junior Championships earlier in the summer, and split 58.83 on the silver medal-winning mixed 4×100 medley relay at World Juniors. He only continued improving in short course meters this fall, lowering the European Junior Record in the SCM 200 breast to 2:02.96 and then popping a 1:55/4:08 400 IM combo at the Swim England Winter champs, the latter of which was a British Junior Record by 10 seconds. Adam Peaty is targeting LA 2028, but Team GB may have already found its breaststroker for this Olympic cycle.
• Carlos D’Ambrosio: D’Ambrosio would be a worthy winner most years, but has to settle for an honorable mention due to the sheer strength of the field in 2025. The Italian teen was phenomenal in the 100 and 200 freestyles this year,  and split 47.4 or better on a staggering six occasions this year. That was in addition to four flat-start 47-point swims, including a crucial 47.78 leadoff for Italy’s national-record-setting and silver-medal-winning 4×100 free relay at senior Worlds. He took gold in the 100/200 free double at World Juniors and won eight medals in total in Otopeni, three individual and five on relays. D’Ambrosio broke the Italian Record in the 200 free twice, dropping over half a second from the previous mark to go 1:45.23 and then 1:45.15, and made the finals at the Singapore World Championships at his first senior international meet. He is already Italy’s main man in the 100 free and will have a major opportunity to break out at the European Championships next year.
• Jon Shortt: Shortt has been a big part of a banner year for Irish swimmer, winning two gold medals at World Juniors this year before claiming the European short course 200 back title in a huge new World Junior Record of 1:47.89. He kicked off with swims of 53.86 in the 100 back and 1:56.19, an Irish record, to win those two World Junior titles, and was just 0.15 seconds away from a backstroke sweep as he clocked 25.06 in the 50. Short course Irish records in the 100 (50.10) and 200 (1:47.89) back followed at the European Short Course Championships, where he placed 7th in the final of the former and won gold in the latter by nearly a second, lowering the World Junior standard by a tenth. He now ranks 12th all-time in that event, and 5th among active swimmers. A World semi-finalist this summer, he will be one to watch at the European Championships next year – Hubert Kos will not have it all his own way.
• Zhanshuo Zhang: Zhang won his senior World Championship gold last February in the 4×200 free relay, but it is with hardware of a different color this year that he truly announced himself. He dragged China to a fantastic silver medal in the 4×200 free relay this summer with a 1:44.20 split, third-fastest in the field and well over a second faster than his flat-start best of 1:45.85 from the individual semi-finals. That explains why his 1:44.86 swim to win the event China’s National Games didn’t get the fanfare you might expect – for a swimmer of his undoubted quality this was simply par for the course. He set a World Junior record of 3:42.82 in the 400 there as well, dropping two seconds from the 3:44.82 he swam to finish 5th in Singapore, slicing 0.17 seconds off the 3:42.99 he swam back in early September. The fastest junior 400 freestyler since Ian Thorpe, Zhang was China’s top male performer this year.
• Tatsuya Murasa: Like Zhang, Murasa did not compete at World Juniors this year, but made the most of his first-ever senior Worlds. Having set a best of 1:45.67 to qualify for Singapore, he clipped that with a 1:45.39 in the semi-finals there before rocketing to a Japanese Record of 1:44.54 in the final to win bronze. Having touched 8th after 50 meters, he kept all four 50s under 27 seconds, a feat only matched by eventual champion David Popovici. He didn’t break 1:45.5 this fall, but added new best of 48.43 in the 100 free and 3:46.73 in the 400, and will be a major threat next year at Pan Pacs. The only male junior individual medalist in Singapore, he is just the fourth junior swimmer to make a world 200 free final this Millenium, joining Zhang Lin (2005), Danila Izotov (2009), and David Popovici (2022, 2023), To boot, he now ranks 15th all-time in the event, and 3rd among junior swimmers behind Izotov and Popovici.

PREVIOUS WINNERS

• 2024 Swammy – Kuzey Tuncelli 
• 2023 Swammy – Ilya Kharun
• 2022 Swammy – David Popovici
• 2021 Swammy – Hwang Sunwoo
• 2020 Swammy – Andrei Minakov
• 2019 Swammy – Andrei Minakov
• 2018 Swammy – Kliment Kolesnikov
• 2017 Swammy – Kliment Kolesnikov
• 2016 Swammy – Kyle Chalmers
• 2015 Swammy – Li Zhuhao
• 2014 Swammy – Mack Horton