Only Seven Super-Suited World Records Are Still On The Books

This month, Lukas Märtens took down the super-suited 400 freestyle world record at the Stockholm Open, becoming the first man to break the 3:40 barrier with a 3:39.96. It was one of the oldest long-course world records remaining, and carried historical weight as Märtens not only broke a time barrier but took another super-suited mark off the books by erasing countrymate Paul Biedermann’s mark from the 2009 World Championships.

Now that super-suited mark is gone, how many super-suited world records remain?

We last checked in on this question in October, when Kate Douglass took down Rebecca Soni’s short-course meter 200 breaststroke mark at the Incheon stop of the Swimming World Cup. After Douglass’ swim, only ten super-suited world records were left. Now, that mark is in single digits, with just seven records left.

Thanks to a blistering 2024 Short Course World Championships, there are no super-suited short-course meters world records left. Heading into December’s Short Course World Championships, there were two—the men’s 200 freestyle and women’s 50 butterfly. Luke Hobson broke the 200 freestyle mark, another Biedermann record, leading off the men’s 4×200 freestyle relay, then lowered the mark again in the individual final. Gretchen Walsh broke the women’s 50 butterfly record at the beginning of her historic championships, becoming the first woman sub-24 seconds with a 23.94 in the event semifinals.

The asterisk there is France’s 1:20.77 in the men’s 4×50 freestyle relay, which is still the world’s fastest swim in that event. But it was not ratified by World Aquatics (then FINA) so the official world record stands at 1:21.80, swum by the United States in 2018.

So, there are only long-course super-suited records still standing, one on the women’s side and six on the men’s.

Women

The remaining women’s super-suited world record is of course Liu Zige’s 2:01.81 200 butterfly. This is widely regarded as the toughest world record on the women’s side; Summer McIntosh swam the fastest effort we’ve seen since Liu for gold at the Paris Olympics. Her 2:03.03 makes the second-fastest performer all-time and the fastest performer in a textile suit. She’s still 1.22 seconds off Liu’s pace, with active swimmers Regan Smith (2:03.84) and Zhang Yufei (2:03.86) ranked fourth and fifth all-time.

McIntosh showed off excellent in-season form at the Westmont Pro Series with a 2:04.00 to take over the season’s world rankings.

Men

As we noted in October, freestyle events dominate the men’s list of remaining super-suited world records. Five of the six are freestyle events, with the exception being Aaron Piersol’s 200 backstroke (1:51.92).

It’s been a difficult mark for textile-suit swimmers to approach. Four of the top five performances in 200 backstroke history were swum in super-suits and Ryan Lochte owns the textile world in a 1:52.96 effort he logged in 2011. Since then, no swimmer has broken 1:53, with Mitch Larkin swimming 1:53.17 in 2015 and Evgeny Rylov hitting 1:53.23 in 2021. Rylov has since been banned from World Aquatics competitions and both Ryan Murphy (1:53.57) and Xu Jiayu (1:53.99) swam their fastest times in 2018.

In this next wave of backstrokers, all eyes are on reigning Olympic champion Hubert Kos in the 200 backstroke. He’s taken hold of this event since he first beat Murphy for the 2023 world title and owns a lifetime best 1:54.14, ninth-fastest in history, which makes him the most likely candidate to get into the 1:53 range, especially after his performances so far this spring. Hugo Gonzalez and Keaton Jones also swam 1:54s in 2024, with Gonzalez hitting 1:54.51 at Spanish Trials and Jones 1:54.61 at U.S Trials.

Now, let us turn our attention to the freestyle events.

Cesar Cielo owns the world record in the men’s 50 freestyle with a 20.91. 40.6% of voters in a recent A3 Performance poll on SwimSwam voted this as the most likely super-suited world record to fall next.  There have been no sub-21 second swims in the intervening years, though Caeleb Dressel clocked 21.04 for the textile world record, which reigning Olympic champion Cameron McEvoy scared with a 21.06. Ben Proud (21.11) and Florent Manaudou, who is taking a break from competition, are the only other active swimmers with a lifetime best under 21.20.

After Hobson and Märtens antics, Biedermann’s last remaining world record is the 200 freestyle, which he holds at 1:42.00. David Popovici is the prime candidate to break this world record as he clocked a 1:42.97 at the 2022 European Championships.

No other active swimmer has broken 1:44, though there is some question about whether we could see a surge in this event post-shallow Olympic pool. Prime candidates for the next man to break 1:44 include Märtens (1:44.14), Pan Zhanle (1:44.65), and Hobson (1:44.76). There’s a trio of Brits separated by .08 in the 1:44-low range though with British record holder Dean taking a relaxed approach to this season, it is Duncan Scott (1:44.26) or Matt Richards (1:44.30) who are the most likely British swimmers to get under that mark. Still, all these 1:44+ swimmers have some work to do before they challenge the world record in the way that even Popovici has, which is to say, come within a second of the mark.

The 800 freestyle is another matter entirely. Zhang Lin’s 7:32.12 from the 2009 World Championships is more than three seconds faster than the next fastest time, a 7:35.27 Ous Mellouli swam in the same race. Despite the distance renaissance that’s happened in men’s swimming over the last Olympic quad, no man has broken the 7:37 barrier since. Ahmed Hafnaoui, who was recently suspended by World Aquatics for a whereabouts violation, and Sam Short are the only two to break 7:38, as they pushed each other to 7:37.00 and 7:37.76, respectively, at the 2023 World Championships.

Dan Wiffen got close in Paris, swimming a 7:38.19 for gold and has made no secret of his world-record goals. Bobby Finke owns a 7:38.67 best from 2023 Worlds and Märtens followed up his 400 freestyle world record with a German record 7:39.10. That makes him the ninth-fastest swimmer all-time, checking in just behind Finke. This is arguably the field you want chasing this world record, but they’ve still got a significant amount of ground to make up.

Finally, there are two super-suited world records still on the men’s books. First is the 4×100 freestyle relay mark, which the United States set at 3:08.24 during the 2008 Olympics. The U.S team of Dressel, Blake Pieroni, Bowe Becker, and Zach Apple are the only quartet to break 3:09 in textile suits with their 3:08.97 from the Tokyo Games. France’s team from the 2012 Olympics and Russia’s 2019 Worlds squad are the only non-U.S. teams to break the 3:10 barrier.

The U.S. also holds the 4×200 freestyle relay world record, swimming a 6:58.55 at the 2009 World Championships that improved their time from Beijing by a hundredth. Unsurprisingly given their trio of 1:44s in the 200 freestyle, it’s Great Britain’s Dean, Scott, Richards, and James Guy that has gotten the closest to this mark. The quartet owns the third, fourth, and sixth fastest performances in history. They are the only team with active swimmers faster than 7:00, a mark they’ve cleared three times. However, the U.S. team of Hobson, Carson Foster, Jake Mitchell, and Kieran Smith got close at the 2023 World Championships with a 7:00.02.