World Aquatics announced Summer McIntosh and Leon Marchand as its 2024 Swimmers of the Year upon the conclusion of the Short Course World Championships in Budapest on Sunday.
McIntosh
McIntosh becomes the first Canadian to win the honor. At 18 years of age, she is also the youngest recipient of the award since 16 year-old Katie Ledecky in 2013.
Between the Olympics and Short Course World Championships, McIntosh’s 2024 medal hardware consisted of six gold, two silver, and one bronze medal — all but one of them being won individually.
McIntosh didn’t wait until championship season to start making headlines in 2024, though. In February, the Canadian became the 2nd fastest performer of all time in the 800 freestyle and the first person to beat Katie Ledecky in the event head-to-head since 2010.
Three months later at the Canadian Olympic Trials, McIntosh broke her third long course world record, bringing the 400 IM down to 4:24.38. This is two seconds faster than the second-fastest performer ever, Katinka Hosszu, and four seconds ahead of #3 Kaylee McKeown.
The 18-year-old then left the Paris Olympics with three gold medals in the 200 IM, 400 IM, and 200 fly. She also picked up silver in the 400 free behind Ariarne Titmus in what perhaps was the most anticipated and race of the meet.
McIntosh then translated her long course success into the short course pool at the 2024 World Championships in Budapest. She picked up three golds – all in world record fashion – in the 400 free, 200 fly, and 400 IM. Perhaps the most impressive was the IM, where she swam 4:15.48 to break Mireia Belmonte’s long standing world record by three and a half seconds. McIntosh also picked up a silver and World Junior Record in the 200 back and added a bronze in the 4×100 free relay.
“I don’t even know how to put it into words,” McIntosh told World Aquatics about her year. “I had an amazing 2024 overall, in and out of the pool, so I couldn’t be more happy.”
Marchand
Leon Marchand, 22, is the first French athlete to win Swimmer of the Year and the second European man after David Popovici in 2022.
Marchand was undisputedly the golden boy of the 2024 Olympics in his home country. He ended the games as the most decorated athlete, winning four golds – all in Olympic record fashion. In the meet’s first event, the 400 IM, Marchand won by a landslide and barely missed his own world record. He then doubled up in the 200 fly and 200 breast on the same night, the first swimmer in nearly 50 years to win twice in one day individually. He then capped it off with a 200 IM victory, missing Ryan Lochte’s world record by .06.
After reaching superstar status and carrying the games’ closing torch, Marchand competed in the 2024 World Cup series. He won a trio of Triple Crowns in the men’s medley events – sweeping the three events at all three stops of the series — and he broke the SCM 200 IM world record in 1:48.88.
Not to be overlooked was his performance at the 2024 NCAA championships. The Arizona State star led the Sun Devils to their first NCAA title. Individually, he tripled up on wins in the 500 free, 400 IM, and 200 breaststroke (he’s the fastest performer ever in all three).
Full List of World Aquatics Swimmers of the Year
| Year | Female Athlete | Male Athlete |
| 2010 | Therese Alshammar (SWE) | Ryan Lochte (USA) |
| 2011 | Missy Franklin (USA) | Ryan Lochte (USA) |
| 2012 | Missy Franklin (USA) | Michael Phelps (USA) |
| 2013 | Katie Ledecky (USA) | Ryan Lochte (USA) |
| 2014 | Katinka Hosszú (HUN) | Chad le Clos (RSA) |
| 2015 | Katinka Hosszú (HUN) | Mitch Larkin (AUS) |
| 2016 | Katinka Hosszú (HUN) | Michael Phelps (USA) |
| 2017 | Sarah Sjöström (SWE) | Caeleb Dressel (USA) |
| 2018 | Katinka Hosszú (HUN) | Chad le Clos (RSA) |
| 2019 | Sarah Sjöström (SWE) | Caeleb Dressel (USA) |
| 2021 | Emma McKeon (AUS) | Caeleb Dressel (USA) |
| 2022 | Katie Ledecky (USA) | David Popovici (ROU) |
| 2023 | Kaylee McKeown (AUS) | Qin Haiyang (CHN) |
| 2024 | Summer McIntosh (CAN) | Léon Marchand (FRA) |
The Canadian commentators mentioned that Summer was going to accept the award on behalf of Leon. Did they end up doing that?
I’m joking (maybe 🤣😂) but a romance between them in a few years (a tad young summer now) would be epic, no?
Two of the greatest swimmers of today with quite the same events.
Imagine the kids and their genetic heritage, unbeatable in the pool 😱😍🤩
That would make an epic book!
Michael Andrew robbed
Marchand in 24
– king of the scy : ncaa title and 3 bpever
– king of the scm : 3 triple crowns + WR
– king of the lcm : 4 golds
King of y and m.
and without dropping out of the worlds in Budapest (and even by dropping out of the world cup instead), what a year it could have been!
For 2025, what to expect?
in Singapore, 3 or 4 gold medals in lcm (possible 1 or 2 wrs too) and in scm?
World cup at end of the year?
How has Peaty never been named the male swimmer of the year??
Because he swims one event not including relays. Oh the goofy fifty breast on occasion as well my bad .
He swims the 50 and 100 in his stroke which is as many events as Popvoci who swims the 200m and 100m free.
Hard to give it to someone who only swims one event
Mitch larkin and le clos won it
Swimswam nailed their top 100 rankings back in February. Marchand and McIntosh both ranked #1 and delivered!
lol I just checked out the ranking again, crazy stroke of luck that the #2-4 ranked men won a total of 0 Olympic medals this year. That’s not on SwimSwam of course, I think anyone could’ve agreed that Qin, Hafnaoui, and Short deserved to be somewhere in the top 5
Both Leon and Summer are deserving of these awards as they each reached the pinnacle of success in Paris and consistently swam at a high level throughout the 2024 season.
I’m wondering if either Braden or Mel would have an inkling as to how the voting works by World Aquatics when determining the winners. I’m guessing the Olympics would carry a higher degree of importance followed by the WC?
Appreciate your feedback if possible.
There’s a nomination committee and then they claim they had a public vote on Instagram to determine the winner? First I’m hearing of that…
do you guys think it was close between her and Gretch?
I think success in the long course pool and therefore the Olympics goes a long way towards this award.Gretchen killed it at short course but that doesn’t compare to Olympic success.
actually I guess the olympics really pushed McIntosh ahead
no, even though gretchen had a great sc worlds, summer also had a really good meet breaking 3 world records and got a silver and WJR in an off event, so SC worlds comes nowhere close to closing the olympic gap
No, similarly to Golden Goggles criteria, 2024 was all about Paris.
Gretchen wasn’t even in the race for the award, the other candidates were McKeown, Regan Smith, Sjostrom and Ledecky. She had a monster meet in Budapest, but of course Olympics are 10x (if not more) important than a short course WC, so Summer is totally the most worthy winner
yeah i think every individual olympic champion would have been put higher than walsh
Gretchen Walsh wasn’t even a finalist, so no, not close. No one was anywhere close to Summer in 2024, and that will probably be the case until 2034. As her coach just said “We haven’t seen anywhere close to Summer’s potential”
Gretchen Walsh was a finalist at the Paris Olympics. She won the silver medal in the 100 fly behind Torri Huske.
they mean out of the final nominees for the award
This is the scary thing, by 2028 she could win 5 individual golds pending which events she picks. Methinks she will be very difficult to beat in both IMs the 200 fly the 400 free and even 800 or 200 free but those last 2 will be hard.
If you had asked me to guess how many times Ledecky had won this award I would have estimated a lot higher than two. Surprising.
My first thought as well. Popovici also feels so random in ’22 but I guess he was really killing for around 2 months straight in the 100 & 200. Also a weird year in general with covid.
He broke Cielo’s WR in 100m/swam 1:42:97 in 200m (textile WR, I think) in 2022 and basically won everything there was to win in LC that year in 100 and 200 (Junior and Senior.) Agree that some swimmers did not take 2022 that seriously, since it was a post-Olympic year.
World Aquatics values the entire body of work, not necessarily the swimmer who would be first in a SwimSwam ranking. Sjostrom and Hosszu got it over Ledecky via showing up for short course and world cup meets, often while Ledecky was still at Stanford.
It’s similar in track. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has won the award only once and may not win it again. She simply doesn’t compete frequently enough.
Does Sydney ever compete except at trials and the big meet of the year?