Now that the end of the year is on the horizon, it’s time for the annual Swammy Awards to be announced.
SwimSwam has been handing out these awards since 2012 to honor the best performances and achievements in swimming each year. There is always some disagreement about winners, and the subjective nature invites that difference of opinion.
The awards recognize top performers across four categories: International Swimmers of the Year, International Coaches of the Year, U.S. Awards, and Other Awards.
International Swimmers of the Year awards include Male Swimmer of the Year, Female Swimmer of the Year, Breakout Male Swimmer of the Year, Breakout Female Swimmer of the Year, and Comeback Swimmer of the Year.
Continental recognition is given across eight regions, with Male and Female Swimmer of the Year awards for Africa, Asia, Canada, Central America/Caribbean, Europe, Oceania, South America, and the United States. The category also includes World Junior Male and Female Swimmer of the Year as well as Open Water Male and Female Swimmer of the Year.
International coaching awards are given for Africa, Asia, Britain, Canada, Europe, Oceania, and the U.S.
U.S.-specific awards include High School Team of the Year, U.S. Club Coach of the Year, Men’s and Women’s NCAA Awards, as well as Age Group Swimmers of the Year across five age groups.
The “other category” features just two awards: Top 10 Swims of the Year and Heart of a Champion.
We’ll keep track of all of the winners below.
You guys forgot to update US male & female and World male junior.
Bernd has been overly underrated on SwimSwam for years. Crazy he wasn’t even mentioned for two years in a row when he is coaching multiple swimmers who make Olympic and World podiums (including multiple golds) and breake WR.
He could almost turn everyone into a world class distance swimmer, not just rely on the luck to be able to coach Summer McIntosh for one season and boast about it to media over and over again.
I’m rooting for Lani Pallister for female breakout swimmer!
It really depends on how they define breakout.
The definition has always been a little ambiguous. Lani made big improvements this year but she has been a well-established swimmer for years.
She’s won global medals in previous years so I doubt it meets the criteria for a breakout. More like most improved but that award doesn’t exist.
He won’t win awards due to his pesky French training partner, but is Hubi the #2 men’s swimmer in the world right now?
No, Popovici is.
Marchand, Qin, Grousset, Jaouadi, Popovici all won multiple golds this year while Kos didn’t.
He broke 2 more WRs than either of those guys this year plus won the WC curcuit. That coupled with his Worlds gold/bronze puts him up there with them.
Even though many of the folks who comment here will not agree, Kos’ NCAA meet was worth of pushing him a bit further up the ladder of this discussion.
Kos absolutely won word championship gold. He won the 200BK in Singapore. He also won the 2025 World Cup and got the triple crown in all 3 backstroke events. Plus a world record
He said multiple, not one..
Even without Marchand he doesn’t win a second gold at Worlds.
I’d say
1) Marchand
2) Popovici
3) Kos/Grousset (really a toss-up)
Missing category:
Female/Male Race of the Year
In the female’s case, the Race of the Century
100% agree! They should really make this a category, because this to me is the excitement category. Who cares about times, which race had us all on the edge of our seats with lead changes and battles throughout the race. Without a doubt in 2025 it would be Katie and the 800 at worlds. I wanted this last year and it would have been the 200 im at the Olympics in Paris, that race had I think 3 or 4 lead changes.
That bonkers world record means male swimmer of the year has to go to Marchand but it feels a shame for Popovici to win nothing given Marchand is also European.
A bunch of men won two individual golds so you could make a few different arguments… they’ll probably go with Marchand though.
The women are the opposite where you’d have to be brain dead to even entertain anyone other than McIntosh
Leon was the only men’s LC world record of the entire year, it’s not up for debate.
I agree. He broke Ryan Lochte’s WR which stood since 14 years. And the time is otherworldly. No debate
The top 4 people are discussing here are all European
Obviously Summer is the female swimmer of the year, if there was a category for both sexes, she’d be 1 in that too. To suggest otherwise would be pure insanity. But what I want to lobby is Summer should have the 1 swim of the year, not any of her mindboggling new world records, but the one she didn’t get – the 200m fly at world championships.
54.6 was the swim of the year.
Yeah! Lowering a world record by half A second was historic
Not breaking a world record is better than world record
Yeah honestly Summer’s 200fly was more impressive than Marchand’s 1:52 when you compare it to what any other woman in history has been able to do in a textile suit
Summer 200 fly or Gretchen 54.60?
Before the Paris Olympics no one even entertained the idea of the women’s 2 fly going down
Same as sjostrom 100 fly record
no MacNeil, Huske, Zhang, McKeon were all very close multiple times, its almost surprising that it lasted as long as it did
That’s what makes her breaking Sjostorm’s record by so much so special.
Marchand 1:52.69
No it wasnt??