One of the greatest swimmers of all-time is back in training mode and is considering a return to the international stage this year.
Swedish sprinting legend Sarah Sjostrom recently wrapped up an extended five-week training camp in South Africa, and after giving birth in late August 2025, she is slowly but surely beginning to feel like herself in the pool again.
The 32-year-old got back in the water just a month and a half after having her first baby, son Adrian, but said she hadn’t been doing any structured training until heading to South Africa.
“About six weeks after giving birth, I started doing a little bit of Pilates, and I did some swimming sometimes, maybe once or twice a week, and I tried to do a little bit more when I felt good,” Sjostrom told SwimSwam in a phone interview Monday. “But I didn’t stress about coming back. I just trained when I had time for it, but now, in January, I’ve been back on a structured training plan, which has been really good.”
Strength training was clearly an area of focus for Sjostrom during her ramp-up, noting that she was doing approximately five gym sessions per week to go along with six swims in South Africa. She said this schedule was very different from what she had been doing previously, pre-baby, but felt that with the goal of developing more strength, she needed more recovery, hence the relatively low number of weekly pool sessions.
“My coach, Antonio (Lutula), joined me for three weeks to help me get back into things, and after that, I trained on my own for a few weeks,” she said. “The focus has been on building strength again, especially in the gym, and it’s been really good training.”
Coach Lutula spoke on the differences in Sjostrom’s current regimen in an interview with SVT Sport: “A big difference now is that we train a little less. Sarah swims six sessions instead of eight, and the sessions are shorter. There is also more strength training now, but I am convinced that she will have time to build up her strength again, as there is quite a long time until this summer’s European Championships.”
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Going to Stellenbosch, a town in South Africa’s Western Cape, has been an annual early-year tradition for Sjostrom for the past decade – a good place to get some sunshine and training in during the Swedish winter.
“I started going there in 2016,” Sjostrom said. “I’ve been mixing training and vacation when I go. At the start of the Olympic year, we went for four weeks with the Swedish team, and it was really nice.
“Life is easy there. At the moment, we have a lot of snow (in Sweden). Digging out the car every morning can be an extra workout, so it’s quite nice, especially with the baby here too, to be in the sun.”
Back home in Sweden now, Sjostrom was clear about her intentions in 2026. Her focus is on the 50 free and 50 fly, two events in which she’s the current world record holder, but she’s not forcing anything.
“I’m focusing on the 50s,” she said. “At first, my focus was just on trying to find a good routine again. I’d been training, but I hadn’t really done any structured training since the Olympics—I was really just going with the flow.
“I would wake up in the morning and go to the pool a few times a week, sometimes not at all, but now it’s nice to get back to things. I’m feeling better every day. I’m not comparing myself to where I was, but I can compare from day to day now, and I can see progress from today to the day before. But if I were to compare today to where I was before Paris, it would be far away, but it’s quite fun to see the progress from day to day now.”
She said going to the European Championships, which will run from July 31 until August 16 in Paris, is on her radar, but only if she can do herself justice and be competitive.
“It would be interesting to see if I could come back and be ready for the European Championships. I do want to have the right feeling if I’m going to go there. I wouldn’t want to go if I’m just going to race for a semi-final, I want to be there and be competitive, obviously, but I’m not going to stress about it. I’m going to relax and take everything step by step, not rush anything, and see where that takes me. I will be far away from the training loads I’ve had in the past, but maybe what I do now will be enough to take me back to a solid result, we’ll see.
“But obviously, the focus will be on my baby,” she laughed. “And anyone who’s had a baby knows that sleep isn’t really a priority now–if I sleep at all.”
Sjostrom acknowledged that ramping up her training frequency while caring for a newborn has been a challenge, but said the flexibility of Sweden’s parental leave system has been a major help. Because she technically doesn’t need to take time off, Sjostrom was able to transfer her allotted parental leave days to her husband, Johan de Jong Skierus, allowing him to take on more of the day-to-day childcare while she trains.
Sjostrom is one of the most decorated swimmers in history, owning three Olympic gold medals and six total, most recently completing a historic double when she won the women’s 50 and 100 freestyle at the 2024 Games in Paris.
The owner of an astonishing 20 world titles (14 LC, six SC), Sjostrom would have a chance at history if she does make a return to the European Championships.
She’s already the most decorated swimmer in the history of the European Aquatics Championships in terms of total medals with 28, but her 17 gold medals are one away from tying Germany’s Franziska van Almsick for the most all-time among women. Alexander Popov has the most gold medals of anyone at Euros with 21.
Sjostrom was not in attendance at the 2024 European Aquatics Championships, but prior to that, she swept the women’s 50 free and 50 fly at the 2022 edition, winning the 50 free for the second time in her career and the 50 fly for the fifth.
She should train with mcevoy
2 more gold medal in LA
3
50 fly
50 free
100 free
I think I read that John is taking a little bit over a year of now and in Sweden there are 480 paid days off where each parent’s has to use at least 90 of days.
Great interview. Thanks.