Swimming’s Greatest Record Years: The 2009 Super-Suit Era To The 2024 Short Course Worlds

Some years in swimming, a few records fall here and there. Other years, the sport goes absolutely crazy. World records that seemed untouchable for years suddenly start dropping like dominoes, leaving fans scrambling to keep track of who just broke what and by how much. It’s not random chaos, though. These record-breaking explosions happen when the right mix of talent, timing, and circumstances collide at just the right moment.

SwimSwam has compiled a comprehensive table of all of the world records set by year, broken down by long course, short course, gender, relay, individual, mixed, pretty much any way you would want to compare any years side by side.

Let’s run through some of the numbers.

THE MOST WORLD RECORDS?

As you might expect, 2009 tops the list for the year with the most world records: 79 women’s marks and 59 men’s marks. The infamous 2009 World Championships alone produced 42 of the 66 world records, with 126 total world records set that year when factoring in pre-Worlds meets as well as short course meets like the European Championships and World Cup circuit. This record-breaking spree was fueled by the controversial polyurethane “super suits” that were banned shortly after.

The only remaining women’s super-suited world record is of course Liu Zige’s 2:01.81 200 butterfly. This, for a long time, was widely regarded as the toughest record on the women’s side; Summer McIntosh swam the fastest effort we’ve seen since Liu for gold at the Singapore Worlds last month 2:01.99. Active swimmers Regan Smith (2:03.84) and Zhang Yufei (2:03.86) are the next closest, and they rank fourth and fifth all-time.

The men, on the other hand, still have five marks in the book, four of which are individual events and two are relays.

Cesar Cielo owns the world record in the men’s 50 freestyle with a 20.91. 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, are the only other active swimmers with a lifetime best under 21.20.

Paul Biedermann’s last remaining world record is the 200 free, sits at 1:42.00. Romanian David Popovici is the prime candidate to break this world record as he clocked a 1:42.97 at the 2022 European Championships. He has not been able to find the sub-1:43 magic since, but has posted numerous times in the 1:43-low to 1:43-mid range. The only other active swimmer to break 1:44 is Luke Hobson, who clocked efforts of 1:43.73 and 1:43.84 this summer.

The 800 free 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, only one man has broken the 7:37 barrier since. That honor belongs to Tunisia’s Ahmed Jaouadi, who scorched 7:36.88 en route to winning world gold a few weeks ago, becoming the third-quickest man in history. His countryman, Ahmed Hafnaoui, who is current serving a suspension by World Aquatics for a whereabouts violation, and Sam Short are the only two to break 7:38. They pushed each other to 7:37.00 and 7:37.76, respectively, at the 2023 World Championships.

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 back 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 active swimmers Ryan Murphy (1:53.57) and Xu Jiayu (1:53.99) swam their besrt times in 2018.

In this next wave of backstrokers, all eyes are on reigning Olympic champion Hubert Kos. The 22-year-old has taken hold of this event since he first beat Murphy for the 2023 world title and owns a lifetime best of 1:53.19, making him the fifth-fastest performer in history, which makes him the most likely candidate to get into the 1:52 range. South Africa’s Pieter Coetze, 21, is the only other man to break 1:54 since 2021 with his 1:53.36 runner-up swim for the Worlds last month.

The first relay is the 4×100 free, which the United States set at 3:08.24 during the 2008 Olympics. The Americans and Australians are the only countries to break 3:09 in textile suits, with their matching 3:08.97s. France’s team from the 2012 Olympics, Russia’s 2019 Worlds squad, and Italy’s 2025 Worlds quartet are the only non-US/Australian teams to ever break the 3:10 barrier.

The U.S. also holds the 4×200 free relay standard, 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 free, it’s Great Britain’s Tom Dean, Duncan Scott, Matt 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.

Team USA certainly has a shot at lowering the record, but they’ve got to all be firing on all cylinders to take down the legendary mark. Both the United States and Great Britain have entered the past few major long course meets with season bests that would theoretically break the record, but neither team has had all four swimmers perform to their potential on the same day.

There are no super-suited short-course meters world records left.

OUTSIDE OF THE SUPER SUIT ERA?

Though it might sound surprising at first, 2024 was the year since 2009 where the most world records were set. If you’re thinking to yourself, “How? There were only four world records set at the Paris Olympics and only two at the U.S. Olympic Trials,” then you’re overlooking the absolute demolition that took place at the Short Course Worlds in Budapest. A total of 30 world records were broken over the six-day meet, with 50 total records set throughout the year.

The women were responsible for 20 of the 30 Budapest records, 17 of them were from individual events, and were all set by one of four athletes: Gretchen Walsh, Summer McIntosh, Kate Douglass, and Regan Smith.

Walsh set a world record almost every time she entered the pool, ultimately leaving the meet having set nine records across five individual events, in addition to two relay world marks.

When the American was breaking World Records, she was annihilating them by wide margins. Many of those records were set by legendary names in the sport of swimming such as Katinka Hosszu (who held the 100 IM record prior to Walsh’s swim in October), Maggie MacNeil, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, and Therese Alshammar.

Walsh’s meet will still go down as one for the history books, a fact that is hard to dispute. Across her 18 races that week, Walsh set a record (World, American, or Championship) 15 of the times she entered the water, the only exceptions being the final of the 50 butterfly, prelims of the 100 free, and prelims of the women’s 4×100 free relay.

Outside of 2024, there were 49 records set in 2013, but that year has an asterisk because that was the year that World Aquatics began ratifying mixed relay world records, which account for 17 of those records.

WORLD RECORDS BY YEAR