SwimSwam’s Top 100 For 2022: Full Women’s Rankings

With our Top 100 For 2022 series coming to a close, it’s time to revisit the rankings as we look ahead to a fast year of swimming.

While it appears as though there won’t be another World Championship meet until July 2023, the rankings were put together prior to this announcement and reflect where we would rank swimmers assuming there would be a best-on-best competition this year.

On the women’s side, Katie Ledecky earned the #1 spot on our list, with a trio of Aussies closely behind.

See the full lists:

Check out the Top 100 Women For 2022 below:

Ranking Swimmer Country
1 Katie Ledecky USA
2 Kaylee McKeown Australia
3 Ariarne Titmus Australia
4 Emma McKeon Australia
5 Zhang Yufei China
6 Tatjana Schoenmaker South Africa
7 Yui Ohashi Japan
8 Maggie MacNeil Canada
9 Siobhan Haughey Hong Kong
10 Sarah Sjostrom Sweden
11 Regan Smith USA
12 Lilly King USA
13 Kylie Masse Canada
14 Hali Flickinger USA
15 Lydia Jacoby USA
16 Penny Oleksiak Canada
17 Sydney Pickrem Canada
18 Alex Walsh USA
19 Kate Douglass USA
20 Simona Quadarella Italy
21 Torri Huske USA
22 Evgeniia Chikunova Russia
23 Li Bingjie China
24 Summer McIntosh Canada
25 Benedetta Pilato Italy
26 Claire Curzan USA
27 Yang Junxuan China
28 Ranomi Kromowidjojo Netherlands
29 Cate Campbell Australia
30 Erica Sullivan USA
31 Emma Weyant USA
32 Abbie Wood Great Britain
33 Louise Hansson Sweden
34 Annie Lazor USA
35 Wang Jianjiahe China
36 Rhyan White USA
37 Kira Toussaint Netherlands
38 Yu Yiting China
39 Katie Grimes USA
40 Anastasia Kirpichnikova Russia
41 Sarah Kohler Germany
42 Margherita Panziera Italy
43 Sophie Hansson Sweden
44 Anastasia Gorbenko Israel
45 Erika Fairweather New Zealand
46 Kelsi Dahlia USA
47 Olivia Smoliga USA
48 Madison Wilson Australia
49 Anastasiya Shkurdai Belarus
50 Abbey Weitzeil USA
51 Arianna Castiglioni Italy
52 Barbora Seemanova Czech Republic
53 Boglarka Kapas Hungary
54 Simone Manuel USA
55 Ingrid Wilm Canada
56 Minna Atherton Australia
57 Mollie O’Callaghan Australia
58 Kathleen Dawson Great Britain
59 Marie Wattel France
60 Beryl Gastaldello France
61 Phoebe Bacon USA
62 Beata Nelson USA
63 Emily Seebohm Australia
64 Paige Madden USA
65 Kayla Sanchez Canada
66 Freya Anderson Great Britain
67 Katinka Hosszu Hungary
68 Taylor Ruck Canada
69 Pernille Blume Denmark
70 Molly Renshaw Great Britain
71 Erika Brown USA
72 Anna Hopkin Great Britain
73 Maria Kameneva Russia
74 Katharine Berkoff USA
75 Martina Carraro Italy
76 Svetlana Chimrova Russia
77 Leah Smith USA
78 Melanie Henique France
79 Tang Qianting China
80 Emily Escobedo USA
81 Merve Tuncel Turkey
82 Rebecca Smith Canada
83 Rikako Ikee Japan
84 Ajna Kesely Hungary
85 Yuliya Efimova Russia
86 Tessa Cieplucha Canada
87 Bailey Andison Canada
88 Maddy Gough Australia
89 Lana Pudar
Bosnia and Herzegovina
90 Eneli Jefimova Estonia
91 Katie Shanahan Great Britain
92 Elizabeth Dekkers Australia
93 Anna Ntountounaki Greece
94 Tang Muhan China
95 Meg Harris Australia
96 Yu Liyan China
97 Kelsey Wog Canada
98 Mary-Sophie Harvey Canada
99 Ellen Walshe Ireland
100 Arina Surkova Russia

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Ian Fulford
1 year ago

Emma Mackeon will blow Katie and Arien into tumble weed come any form of Competition. Emma will become the greatest Australian swimmer of all time. The womens 100m and 50m just need to be adjusted to reflect Emma’s greatness. Who makes these observations that Emma Mackeon is not the true Queen of the pool. The100m butterfly is her event, now she has strength and speed.

Sahara
1 year ago

I think Ariarne should be #1 as she has broke Katie’s world record last night. In my opinion she is much better

Sub13
2 years ago

Other comment in approval queue so trying again:

Just a reminder that Erika Brown is ranked above Anna Hopkin, Meg Harris and Bronte Campbell (who wasn’t even on the list).

All three of them beat her in the only event she swims, all three of them swam faster relay splits and all three of them are gold medalists.

Literally the dumbest ranking on the whole list that can’t possibly be anything other than American bias.

Last edited 2 years ago by Sub13
Sub13
2 years ago

Deleted

Last edited 2 years ago by Sub13
Texas Tap Water
2 years ago

Now that there is no world championship and no international meet for USA, will Swimswam update this list.

Other countries such as Australia will still have Commonwealth Games and will no doubt make a power move on the world ranking and records.

jamesjabc
Reply to  Texas Tap Water
2 years ago

If you compare last year’s list with the actual achievement, they got SO MUCH wrong. So I would expect that they will just leave the list like this and be wrong again.

Verram
2 years ago

Of course an American on top of the list.. surprise surprise swimswam .. nice algorithm concocted to come up with that result

Swimmer
2 years ago

Shouldn’t Titmus, McKeon and Mckeown all be ahead of Ledecky based off of their performances from Tokyo. All respect to Ledecky but I mean McKeon came away with 7 medals, Titmus and Mckewon came away with 4 (same as Ledecky) but Titmus won 2/3 head-to-heads against ledecky and Mckewon set a WR in 2021. I think at least McKeon and Titmus would be ranked higher. I think both King and Masse should be ahead of smitth based off of Olympic and ISL performance

Last edited 2 years ago by Swimmer
Gheko
Reply to  Swimmer
2 years ago

Yeah well Emma got world swimmer of the year that’s all that counts, and a record 7 medals in tokyo. She also won a MA in Australia The Aussie girls swim team in Tokyo were undoubtedly the World number one team,

jamesjabc
Reply to  Swimmer
2 years ago

This list is about expected results in 2022 solely on individual potential and not necessarily based on achievement from last year (whether it’s fair to exclude relays altogether is an interesting question). So if you take out the relays, McKeon makes sense in 4th. I agree that McKeown and Titmus should be ahead of Ledecky though.

Texas Tap Water
Reply to  jamesjabc
2 years ago

There’s no World championship and no international meet in 2022 for American swimmers, including ledecky.

Australia will have Commonwealth Games.

Using your logic and Swimswam logic, Shouldn’t McKeown, Titmus, and McKeon be ahead of ledecky?

Last edited 2 years ago by Texas Tap Water
jamesjabc
Reply to  Texas Tap Water
2 years ago

These lists were made before that announcement. If we’re taking that into account, I would go McKeown, Titmus, Ledecky then McKeon.

But yes, if they update the lists to consider zero World champs then really no Americans should be in the top 30 of either list.

Gheko
2 years ago

I think Kelsi Dahlia should be top ten, Although she like Ledecky will not be swimming any International events this year, Maybe the Commonweaalth Games will have a few World Records with Australia Canada South Africa England Scotland etc!

jamesjabc
Reply to  Gheko
2 years ago

You say Kelsi Dahlia should be top ten with no explanation, and then point out she won’t even be competing this year. What?

About James Sutherland

James Sutherland

James swam five years at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, specializing in the 200 free, back and IM. He finished up his collegiate swimming career in 2018, graduating with a bachelor's degree in economics. In 2019 he completed his graduate degree in sports journalism. Prior to going to Laurentian, James swam …

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