‘True’ World Junior Records In Swimming As of August 2019

Coming out of the 2019 World Junior Championships, FINA’s World Junior records have been a hot topic of conversation, especially the fact that they don’t always reflect the fastest junior swim in history.

When FINA started tracking world junior records in 2014, previous swims were not retroactively awarded world junior record status. That had much to do with FINA’s policy of only ratifying world junior records if the swim had been properly verified – the pool checked for legal distance and the swimmer drug tested after the swim.

Swimming fans have noted plenty of pre-2013 swims by juniors that are actually faster than the standing world junior records. More and more of those marks have started to fall, but a few still remain. What follows is our best attempt at putting together ‘true’ world junior records – or the fastest swims our research could dig up by athletes who fit the WJR age brackets:

  • For girls: age 14-17 as of Dec. 31 in the year of the swim
  • For boys: age 15-18 as of Dec. 31 in the year of the swim

FINA tracks its juniors ages by birth year – that means if a boy turns 19 in December, his swims that year are not eligible for world junior record status, even if they are technically done while he is still 18. Same goes for a girl turning 18 at some point after her swim, but before the start of the next year.

It’s possible we’ve missed some in here – if that’s the case, please let us know in the comment section, and we’ll do our best to update these records to get the most comprehensive list possible. In some cases, national age records do not qualify, though, given FINA’s way of calculating ages compared to some federations.

You can see the official world junior records here, for boys and girls.

‘True’ World Junior Records, Long Course Meters

*Swims in bold are current official world junior records.

Girls

Swimmer Nation Time Year
50 free Cate Campbell Australia 23.99 2009
100 free Penny Oleksiak Canada 52.70 2016
200 free Missy Franklin USA 1:55.06 2011
400 free Katie Ledecky USA 3:58.37 2014
800 free Katie Ledecky USA 8:11.00 2014
1500 free Katie Ledecky USA 15:28.36 2014
50 back Fu Yuanhui China 27.22 2013
100 back Regan Smith USA 57.57 2019
200 back Regan Smith USA 2:03.35 2019
50 breast Ruta Meilutyte Lithuania 29.48 2013
100 breast Ruta Meilutyte Lithuania 1:04.35 2013
200 breast Viktoria Zeynep Gunes Turkey 2:19.64 2015
50 fly Rikako Ikee Japan 25.46 2017
100 fly Sarah Sjostrom Sweden 56.06 2009
200 fly Jiao Liuyang China 2:04.72 2008
200 IM Ye Shiwen China 2:07.57 2012
400 IM Ye Shiwen China 4:28.43 2012

Boys

Swimmer Nation Time Year
50 free Michael Andrew USA 21.75 2017
100 free Kyle Chalmers Australia 47.58 2016
200 free Danila Izotov Russia 1:43.90 2009
400 free Ian Thorpe Australia 3:40.59 2000
800 free Mack Horton Australia 7:45.67 2013
1500 free Franko Grgic Croatia 14:46.09 2019
50 back Kliment Kolesnikov Russia 24.00 2018
100 back Kliment Kolesnikov Russia 52.53 2018
200 back Ryosuke Irie Japan 1:54.77 2008
50 breast Nicolo Martinenghi Italy 26.97 2017
100 breast Nicolo Martinenghi Italy 59.01 2017
200 breast Akihiro Yamaguchi Japan 2:07.01 2012
50 fly Michael Andrew USA 23.22 2017
100 fly Kristof Milak Hungary 50.62 2017
200 fly Kristof Milak Hungary 1:52.71 2018
200 IM Michael Phelps USA 1:55.94 2003
400 IM Kosuke Hagino Japan 4:08.94 2012

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Scott Griffith
4 years ago

Ariarne Titmus and Taylor Ruck, both 1.54 200 Freestyle swimmers at age 17

Admin
Reply to  Scott Griffith
4 years ago

Both swimmers turned 18 in the year they went 1:54, so are age-ineligible. Remember: these ages are as of December 31 of the year of the swim, not as of date of the swim.

John
4 years ago

It isn’t the true WJR but it amazes me that MTMs 200 fly would beat the current official WJR from 1981.

Dee
4 years ago

Call: Mens 50 & 100 free ‘true’ WJRs will both go down in the next few years. 200/400 will stand for another decade.

IM FAN
4 years ago

BTW all the respect in the world to Jiao Liuyang, she is an Olympic gold medalist after all, but if we were to go textile for the list I think Mary T would hold the record right? She was so amazing…

Ytho
4 years ago

Milak’s 200 shouldnt be bold, fine recognises his 1.53 from 2017

IM FAN
4 years ago

BTW, I know there is a logical fallacy in the fact that swimmers born on or close to December 31st get screwed by FINAs system while those born on January 1st get a huge advantage but if you think about it’s not to different from high school sports with kids born in late August/early september being nearly a year older then those born in early August or June who will be the youngest in there class by a decent amount. You got to keep a coherent season for these athletes, so unfortunately an arbitrary cutoff is needed, even if it cheapens the records a bit.

Jred
Reply to  IM FAN
4 years ago

No it isn’t. You can just to birthdays, like every country does.

yinz
Reply to  Jred
4 years ago

Some countries do, some don’t.

Anthony Preda
Reply to  IM FAN
4 years ago

A concept discussed in great detail in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers.” Think the example used was Canadian Junior Hockey players, there’s been more NHL players coming out of that system that were born in the earlier months of the year.

13 % Chinese person
Reply to  Anthony Preda
4 years ago

Yes & do not get born between Dec 20 -Jan 5 because your presents suffer from Xmas . Its a thing !

Eagleswim
Reply to  IM FAN
4 years ago

I don’t think you know what a logical fallacy is

straightblackline
4 years ago

Ian Thorpe’s time in the 400 is crazy but let’s not forget that at the 2001 World Championships in one of his few swims over 800 he went 7.39.16 which would be over six seconds faster than the official junior record had he not turned 19 later that year. It’s also amazing his time would have won gold at the most recent WC’s

BluePhoenix5
4 years ago

Thorpe’s time is mindboogling!

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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