The Female Swimmers With The Fastest Four-Stroke 800 IM Add-Ups – 2026 Version

Just over three years, a pair of personal best times from Summer McIntosh in the 200 back and 200 breast, both off-events for her, prompted some readers to ask: which female swimmer had the fastest 800 IM add-up?

 The answer in December 2022 was Hungarian swimmer Katinka Hosszu, at that point holder of both long course IM World records. She was one of only three swimmers under 8:40, and over three seconds ahead of Ye Shiwen and McIntosh in second and third respectively.

This time, McIntosh has taken a commanding lead. She is over eight seconds faster than she was in 2022, thanks to drops in all four strokes. The most notable of them comes in breaststroke at 3.62 seconds, although fly is just behind with 3.21 seconds, despite her being the reigning world champion in that event when we looked at this previously. She also dropped 1.14 seconds on free, and 0.34 seconds on back.

Four of the top five swimmers are previous Olympic Champions, with Katinka Hosszu (2016), Ye Shiwen (2012), and Yui Ohashi (2021) joining McIntosh at the top. Mary-Sophie Harvey is the odd one out, after dropping more than five seconds in this add-up over three years to move from 8th to 4th, putting two Canadians in the top five.

There are four Hungarian swimmers in the top 14, showcasing the medley strength of that nation extends beyond Hosszu. The most surprising of that quartet is Dalma Sebestyen, who has a best time of just 4:43.77 in the 400 IM. A big reason for her leap was an impressive 2:26.47 in the 200 breast which she swam just last month at the Győr Open Swim Cup.

The U.S. has the most swimmers in the top 20, however, with Katie Hoff, Ariana Kukors, Elizabeth Beisel, Madisyn Cox, and Leah Smith making the cut.

Regularly swimming all of the requisite events, at either full taper meets, mid-season rest meets, nationals rolling into World Championships, and other such affairs, is often a limiting factor in these lists. For some of the best 400 IMers in history, like Stephanie Rice on breaststroke, we couldn’t find times for long course 200s of all strokes.

If you find a swimmer who is fast enough to have made the top 20 but is missing, let us know in the comments below.

Swimmers Who Narrowly Missed Out:

• There were eight swimmers within a second of the top 20, far more than there were within the same distance in the 400 IM add-up. They were led by Olympic Bronze medalist Caitlin Leverenz, who was just 0.03 seconds behind Jenna Forrester in 8:54.40.
• There is an anglophone theme to the majority of those eight, with all bar Yana Klochkova hailing from one of the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, or Australia. Audrey Derivaux is the youngest of those, notching 8:54.77 at just 16 years old.
• Regan Smith is a breaststroke swim away from making the last, as was the case in the 400 IM add-up. She is 6:04.42 across free, fly, and back, but we could not find a breaststroke time for her. It would take 2:49.95 to match Jenna Forrester for 20th.
• Kaylee McKeown, her backstroke rival, is missing a 200 fly time, as is Alex Walsh and Anastasiya Gorbenko. Anything under 2:20 would slot them comfortably onto the list, as they currently stand at 6:23.38, 6:28.50, and 6:30.48 respectively.