SwimSwam’s Top 100 For 2025: Women’s #80-71

After an unprecedented year of racing that included the Olympics sandwiched between the Long Course and Short Course World Championships, it’s time to start releasing our fifth annual Top 100 list—check out last year’s rankings here.

As in previous years, we’ve taken a statistically driven approach reliant primarily upon world rankings and medals won at the Olympics, and to a lesser extent, Short Course Worlds and the 2024 Worlds in Doha. We’ve also taken into account things such as potential, future medal opportunities, injuries, and versatility. Long course is weighted more than short course, though performance potential in both formats is factored in.

After a large contingent of Russian and Belarusian swimmers raced at Short Course Worlds in December, those swimmers have started to move back up the rankings after they were low on the lists last year due to lack of competition.

We’ll be breaking down the top 100 into multiple installments, so keep an eye out as they’re released.

These lists are, by nature, subjective. If you disagree, leave your thoughts/ranks in the comments.

Thank you to Daniel Takata for his help with the data and compiling the rankings. Sophie Kaufman contributed to this report. 

Women’s Rankings:

• #100 – #91
• #90 – #81
• #80 – #71
• #70 – #61
• #60 – #51
• #50 – #41
• #40 – #31
• #30 – #21
• #20 – #11
• #10 – #1

#80: Amelie Blocksidge, Great Britain (2024 Rank: 95) — 15-year-old Amelie Blocksidge made our list last year in the 95 spot, and she only got faster this year. At the British Olympic Trials, she finished 1st in the 800 and 1500 freestyle events, 2nd in the 400 free, and 7th in the 400 IM, but she missed the Olympic Qualifying Times in her events and was unable to swim in Paris. She did swim at the European Junior Championships in July, picking up wins and new best times in the 800 free (8:30.05) and the 1500 free (16:10.23). Blocksidge was newly 15 at this meet, and she is already faster than the 15 and 16-year-old British Age Group Records in the 800. To put her 800 free time into perspective, at just a few months younger, Katie Ledecky was 8:30.14. Blocksidge got the opportunity to swim at the 2024 SC Worlds in three events, placing 20th in the 400 free, 12th in the 800 free, and 7th in the 1500 free. Her 1500 time of 15:47.28 was just over a second shy of the British National Record in the event.

#79: Katie Shanahan, Great Britain (2024 Rank: 46) —20-year-old Katie Shanahan has shown herself to be a versatile swimmer, but the event where she’s found the most success on the international stage is the 200 backstroke. She’s helped slightly by the fact that the women’s 200 backstroke isn’t the deepest international field but Shanahan has proved that she’s a consistent threat in this race. She took 5th in the 200 backstroke with the second-fastest swim of her career, a 2:07.53, just off her best of 2:07.45. She made the 400 IM at her debut Games as well, flexing her versatility and taking 7th (4:40.17).

#78: Rebecca Meder, South Africa (2024 Rank: NR) —South Africa’s Rebecca Meder reinvented her swimming this year, adding the breaststroke depth in South Africa on top of her IM skills. 22-year-old Meder started swimming the breaststroke events after the Olympics, and she is quickly establishing herself as someone to watch. Meder has previously swam IM events internationally, placing 11th in the 200 at the Olympics. She started swimming the breaststroke events at the World Cup in Shanghai, where she finished 3rd in the 100 and 200 breaststroke and the 200 IM. At the SC World Champs, Meder swam the 100 and 200 breaststrokes, and the 100 and 200 IM events. She finished in the top eight in all four, placing 6th in the 100 breast, 5th in the 200 breast, 6th in the 100 IM and 6th in the 200 IM. She also participated on two of South Africa’s relays, swimming fly on the medley (57.20) and breast on the mixed medley (1:04.81).

#77: Ksenia Misharina, Russia (2024 Rank: 23) —15-year-old Ksenia Misharina has risen the ranks of Russian distance swimming in the last year, and she is only getting faster. At the Russian Swimming Championships in April, Misharina picked up two event wins in the 800 (8:29.05) and 1500 (16:06.09) freestyle events, and a bronze in the 400 free (4:10.32). Her times were significantly faster than when she broke into mainstream swimming just a year prior, dropping almost 30 seconds in the mile, 15 seconds in the 800 and five seconds in the 400. At the National SC Swimming Championships she picked up more wins in the 1500 and 800 freestyles, and placed 3rd in the 200. At SC Worlds, Misharina placed 12th in the 1500 (15:55.80) and 11th in the 800 (8:20.81). She also swam on the 4th place 4×200 freestyle relay for thej Russian Neutral Athletes.

#76: Brianna Throssell, Australia (2024 Rank: NR) —Brianna Throssell had a strong start to 2024. The Australian 28-year-old started the year at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, where she swam three individual events and five relays, winning six medals. Her only individual medal came in the women’s 200 freestyle, where she placed third at 1:56.00. She also finished 4th in the 100 fly and 8th in the 50 fly. She did compete as a member of the gold medal women’s 4×100 medley relay (fly), the silver medal women’s 4×100 freestyle relay, mixed 4×100 medley relay (fly), and mixed 4×100 freestyle relay, and the bronze medal women’s 4×200 freestyle relay. At the Australian Olympic Trials, she finished 3rd in the 100 fly and 4th in the 200 free before scratching the 200 fly, missing the Olympic Team individually. The 4th place finish in the 200 did earn her a Paris swim and a gold medal as a member of the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay.

#75: Waka Kobori, Japan (2024 Rank: NR) —Japanese distance swimmer Waka Kobori has been at the top of Japanese distance swimming for a few years. She started her year at the Japanese Olympic Trials where she won the 200 and 800 freestyle events, placed 2nd in the 400 free, and 3rd in the 400 IM. She went on to swim the 400 at the Olympic Games, where she finished 11th at 4:08.02. She was also a member of the 4×200 freestyle relay, which placed 13th overall. She didn’t compete in the 800 or the 200 but she finished the year ranked 15th in the 800. Her highest year-end ranking came in the 400 IM where she finished 10th at 4:36.55, but there were two Japanese swimmers ahead of her. Kobori also swam at two legs of the World Cup where earned two third place finishes in the 400 free (Incheon) and the 400 IM (Singapore).

#74: Chen Luying, China (2024 Rank: NR) —Chen Luying from China held a World Junior Record this year for a little more than three months. Luying is a 200 butterfly specialist, and the 17-year-old blasted a time of 2:02.52 at the SC Chinese National Championships in September to set the World Junior Record in the event. The 17-year-old held the record until the SC World Championships in December, when Summer McIntosh broke it in the preliminaries. Luying also swam the 200 fly at the Olympic games where she came in 5th, and at the 2024 SC Worlds where she was 5th again. In addition, at SC Worlds she swam 100 fly at SC Worlds individually (finishing 12th), and on relays for China, earning a bronze medal in the 4×100 medley.

#73: Olivia Wunsch, Australia (2024 Rank: 80) — Australia is not hurting for fast freestylers, and Olivia Wunsch finds herself as a victim of that, despite having multiple top 100 times, and two top 15 times. Wunsch, 18, competed mostly at Australia meets last year. At the Australian Age Group Championships, she won the 50 fly, 100 free, and 100 fly, and finished 2nd in the 50. She went on to swim the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, and 100 butterfly at the Australian trials, with her highest finish coming at 4th in the 50. She finished 5th in the 100, which qualified her for the Olympic Team and ultimately won her a gold medal as a member of the prelims 4×100 freestyle relay. Wunsch finished the year ranked 15th in the 50 and 100 freestyles. She was the highest ranked junior swimmer in both. She also finished 51st in the 200 free and 61st in the 100 fly.

#72: Ella Ramsay, Australia (2024 Rank: NR) —Ella Ramsay, 20, joins two other Australian swimmers in this section of ten. Ramsay swims the IM and breaststroke events, and took four top two spots at the 2024 Olympic Trials in the 400 IM, 200 breaststroke, 100 breaststroke, and 200 IM. Her 100 breaststroke just missed the Olympic Qualifying standard, but she swam the 400 IM, 200 IM, and 200 breaststroke at the Games. She ended up finishing 5th in the 400 IM and 12th in the 200 breaststroke. She had also qualified for the final of the 200 IM, but scratched at the last minute due to illness, leaving an empty lane in the final. She did win one medal in Paris, as a member of Australia’s 4×100 medley relay team, swimming the prelims breaststroke leg.

#71: Airi Mitsui, Japan (2024 Rank: 58) — Airi Mitsui is almost exclusively a 200 butterflier, but she is top 10 in the world in the event. At the 2024 Japanese Olympic Trials, she won the 200 fly in 2:06.54. The 20-year-old was not quite able to hold onto this speed through the games, and went 2:08.71 to finish 11th in the semifinals. Had she gone her best time, she would have finished 4th in the event. That time was also enough to place her 7th on the World Rankings in the event for 2024. She also swam the 100 fly and the 200 IM at the Japanese trials, placing 9th and 25th respectively. If she puts together the right swim, she could easily find herself in the final or in medal contention at Worlds.