2025 Golden Goggle Awards
- September 27, 2025
- Denver, Colorado
- SwimSwam Official Ballot
- Online Auction (Closes at 10 PM MST, Sept 27)
Ivan Puskovitch has won the Fran Crippen Open Water Athlete of the Year award. He wins the award after Katie Grimes has won the award the last two years. This is only the third year of the award. Other nominees included Mariah Denigan, Dylan Gravley, and Brinkleigh Hansen.
Puskovitch finished 7th in the 3 km knockout sprints at the 2025 World Championships, finishing 5th in heat 1 of the 1500 race to advance to the semifinal before finishing 7th in the 1000 race as well as 7th after the final 500. His 7th place finish was the highest of any of the open water swimmers for the US in Singapore.
He also was 20th in the men’s 5 km open water event in a time of a 1:00:26.3. He did not swim the 10 km event.
Puskovitch won the US National title in the 5 km event back at the start of April which punched his ticket to Worlds. He was 3rd in the 10 km at US Nationals, just missing making the event at Worlds.
He was a nominee for the award a year ago as he represented the US at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the open water, but Katie Grimes ultimately ended up winning the award.
The knock out is quite the event.
Ivan seems like a robust swimmer to do all those events.
Congratulations Ivan, well done 👏👏👏.
Just for reader clarity, as the article description of the 3km knockout swim and results is a little confusing and misleading.
The 3km knockout consists of 2 X seperate heats of swimmers over a first stage 1500m lap – first 10 swimmers in each 1500m heat advance to a single heat (20 swimmers) over a second stage 1000m lap – first 10 swimmers of the 1000m lap advance to the third and final 500m lap where the medals are decided. Ivan finished 5th in his 1500m first stage heat, advancing to the 1000m stage where he finished 7th in that second stage to advance to the third and final 500m lap where he finished… Read more »