By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
2025 World Championships
- July 27 – August 3, 2025 (pool swimming)
- Singapore, Singapore
- World Aquatics Championships Arena
- LCM (50m)
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The 2025 World Aquatics Championships were nothing if not eventful. There was plenty to talk about both in, and out, of the pool, including on the women’s side, the full-blooming of a budding superstar, one of the greatest battles you’ll ever see, and some gritty swims late in the meet by the Americans.
It’s time to give out the SwimSwam awards for the World Championships for the best and the brightest performers and performances of the meet.
Swimmer of the Meet: Summer McIntosh, Canada
For the 18-year-old Summer McIntosh, the 2025 World Championships was far from her coming out party. She had double gold medals at both the 2022 and 2023 World Championships, and three gold medals at the 2024 Olympics.
But the 2025 World Championships were different, because it was the first where she was clearly the world’s leading female swimmer, and the first with the added pressure of conversation about where her resume stacks up in history.
It was also a transitionary meet, as McIntosh switched coaches after the Olympic Games (and will again), training with Frenchman Fred Vergnoux.
All of that is a lot for an 18-year-old, but McIntosh handled it with a fierce competitiveness, not becoming meek to the moment. While only one of her five individual races was a best time (the 200 fly, which almost took down the toughest World Record on the women’s side right now), she handled a huge schedule well, winning four golds and one bronze medal.
Now McIntosh launches into the phase of her career called “stacking.” She has the World Records, she has the medals, now the game is stacking more of each and seeing just how far she can push herself, and the sport, over the next three to ten years. She is so talented, leaving her a lot of choices to make in the years ahead, and those choices will be the history that will be spoken of for a generation to come.
Honorable Mentions (in no particular order)
- Katie Ledecky, USA –Â Katie Ledecky added two more individual gold medals to her glittering resume, which makes for 23 career World Championships in long course. She also picked up a silver in the 800 free relay and a bronze in the individual 400 free. She was also the only woman to beat McIntosh in an individual race, serving as a reminder that the throne of Greatest Female Swimmer Ever has not yet been usurped.
- Kaylee McKeown, Australia –Â The reliable McKeown again swept the 100 and 200 backstrokes for the third straight year, even after dropping the 50 backstroke. With a resume that is now approaching some of the greats in Australian swimming history, McKeown overcame a dislocated shoulder and a big training break to once again hold off American Regan Smith in both events, affirming her status as the best in the world. Adding a silver medal in the women’s 400 medley relay was icing on the cake.
- Gretchen Walsh, USA – The meet that might have been. After battling back from early “acute gastrointestinal” illness, Walsh still salvaged two individual gold medals, a Championship Record in the 100 fly, and a key leg on a medley relay World Record. The 54.7 in the 100 fly, after the week she had early on, indicates she was tuned up for a really special meet, if healthy.
Performance of the Meet: Katie Ledecky, USA, 800 Free
One of the greatest races you will ever see, Ledecky held off not only Summer McIntosh, whose coach proposed she might go sub-8 minutes, but also Australian Lani Palister, who was a surprise disruptor and pushed Ledecky down to the absolute last stroke.
If you haven’t actually watched that race yet, please do. You might never look at the 800 free the same again.
Honorable Mentions:
- Summer McIntosh, Canada, 200 Fly – If there’s one event on the women’s docket where you can not break the World Record, it’s the 200 fly. Other than the World Record of 2:01.81 set by Liu Zige of China almost 16 years ago, nobody besides Summer has been faster than 2:03.41 (or 2:03.84 in a textile suit). This might be the best non-World Record time in history. If the 800 free was anything other than what it was, this would be a slam-dunk winner.
- U.S. Women’s 400 Medley Relay – It’s not just the time, though that was a banger. Kate Douglass‘ 1:04.27 breaststroke split was amazing. It’s also the circumstance. Regan Smith beating McKeown on the backstroke leg of the medley again was clutch, Torri Huske coming back from the depths of digestional hell to split 52.52 on the anchor, on a double, was heroic. All four legs are in the same ‘generation,’ meaning there’s nothing about this relay that can’t stay together for three more years, and if they catch a meet where they’re all firing, it’s going to be a record that stands for a very, very, very long time.
Junior Swimmer of the Meet – Yu Zidi, China
Using the World Aquatics definition, meaning they must still be 18 at the end of the year.
While China’s Yu Zidi didn’t win any individual medals at the World Championships, a trio of 4th place finishes, at only 12 years old, is an unprecedented feat.
All three finishes were very close, including a 2:06.43 in the 200 fly (missed by .31 seconds), 2:09.21 in the 200 IM (missed by .06 seconds), and 4:33.76 in the 400 IM (missed by .5 seconds). She added a relay bronze medal as a prelims leg of the women’s 800, making her the youngest swimmer to win a major international medal in history.
Another young swimmer who seemed unbothered by the moment, Yu charmed in her interviews and in her races and became the rare swimming sensation to transcend the sport to mainstream airwaves.
Honorable Mentions:
- Claire Weinstein, USA –Â The only junior to medal, Weinstein took bronze in the 200 free in 1:54.67 – a new best time. She also picked up a silver medal by swimming the leadoff leg of the American 800 free relay, which broke the American Record.
- Mizuki Hirai, Japan –Â The official World Junior Record holder in the 100 fly was about half-a-second shy of her best time, but she still did enough to qualify for a final in the women’s 100 fly individually. She ultimately placed 7th in 56.83.
- Yang Peiqi, China –Â The 18-year-old Yang got off to a slow start at the meet. She swam 4:06.47 in the final of the 400 free to finish 7th, four seconds slower than her best time from the Chinese Championships. But her performances picked up as the day went on. She swam 16:04.93 for 8th in the final of the 1500 free, a six-second drop, and then had a really good 1:55.84 relay split for the bronze medal winning 800 free relay. That time is .75 seconds better than her best flat-start swim.
Clutch Relay Performer – Meg Harris, Australia
This award does not necessarily go to the fastest split(s), it goes to the swimmer who stepped up and had key splits for their relays based on their specific level of expectation.
The swim that brought her back to the 100 free. Meg Harris‘ 50 free World Championship was the obvious front-runner for her at this meet, but her 51.87 split on the winning 400 free relay may have a broader impact for the Australian team on the way to LA.
Harris was just 53.01 in the 100 free at the Australian Trials, and only swam the race in prelims to validate her spot on the relay before scratching the final.
While Australia’s 400 free relay is still the best in the world, especially with 21-year-old Mollie O’Callaghan leading it, there are a lot of question marks behind her, and it is no longer the unbeatable group that it has been the last few years.
But in steps Harris, who sort of had given up on the 100 free individually, splitting 51.87 – the second-fastest split of the field (behind only the individual 100 free champion Marrit Steenbergern from Netherlands).
After the meet, Harris said she was returning to the 100 free, and rightly so after that split. Her overall book of performances in Singapore gives her a chance to chase the medley relay anchor spot too, with MOC.
While Harris only swam one relay leg at the meet, it was a big one.
Honorable Mentions:
- Simone Manuel, USA – Simone Manuel was only in Singapore as a relay swimmer – but USA Swimming put her to work. One of the country’s legendary sprinters of all-time, Manuel swam six relay legs to help chew up some prelims slots for a team that became really thin after illness, and swim some key legs in finals. Manuel was sort of the opposite of Harris: while no one leg stood out for her at the meet, the totality of her body of work was crucial to the team winning the medals table.
- Lani Pallister, Australia –Â Maybe lost in the wake of her incredible run to silver in the 800 free was Pallister’s 800 free relay split. She led off the Australian relay with a 1:54.77 split in finals, which was a new lifetime best and the fastest leadoff leg in the field. That helped catapult Australia to gold ahead of the Americans.
- Anna Peplowski, USA – In that same relay, Anna Peplowski gave the U.S. a lead after her 2nd-leg split of 1:54.75. Prelims and finals of the 800 free relay were her only races of the meet, and her split was a full .95 seconds better than the flat-start 1:55.70 she did at US Nationals to qualify for the meet (which is her lifetime best). That’s a huge step-up and cements her as a fixture for this relay heading towards the Olympics.
- Kate Douglass, USA – Before the meet, Daniel Takata ran some data on how rare it was for all four swimmers on a relay to be under their flat-start times on flying legs (an assumption that I think we all as swim people make too easily). That even showed up in the World Record setting 400 medley relay, where both Regan Smith and Gretchen Walsh were slower than the times they did in the individual event. Torri Huske, however, was not on the freestyle anchor, and Kate Douglass had the superhero split of 1:04.27 on the breaststroke leg. That was a full second better than the 1:05.27 that she swam for silver in the 100 breaststroke final.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: SwimSwam Awards: 2025 World Championships (Women’s Edition)
