14 Years After Breakout 2009 Worlds, Sarah Sjostrom Continues to Wow

For swimmers and swim fans of a certain age, the year 2009 sets off all kinds of cockles. Images of the World Record destruction that lie somewhere between love-bombing and trauma flit through our minds, leaving echos of questions about who was really all that good, with most having moved on to other careers outside of the water.

Among that era, though, there is still one star shining, arguably, as bright as she did then: Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, who reminded everyone of her brilliance on Sunday in Monaco with 24.89 in the 50 fly and 23.82 in the 50 free, both on a day where she swam multiple races.

Those 2009 World Championships where Sjostrom’s introduction to the world. She won the 100 fly in 56.06, a World Record at the time, at just 15-years-old.

She could have been a flash-in-the-pan, a supersuiter who peaked before graduating high school, but now, 14 years later, she carries on as one of the best in the world, and one of the best ever.

When we dig through the ranks of swimmers who won gold medals, or really medals of any color, at those championships, there are very few who are even still swimming at a serious level.

A handful, like Allison Schmitt, Katinka Hosszu, and Emily Seebohm, have not formally announced the conclusion of their careers, though are certainly in the closing stages of whatever might be left there.

Others, like Aaron Peirsol, Kirsty Coventry, Marieke Guehrer, and Jessicah Schipper, are long retired and moved on to other careers.

The only other World Champion from that era who is even in the same zip code to Sjostrom at this point is Russian Yulia Efimova, who won the 50 breaststroke in 2009. Like other Russians, she has been relegated to the sidelines by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and even at her most recent racing in 2021 wasn’t doing what Sjostrom did this weekend.

Every time it looked like Sjostrom is ready to take her victory lap and fly off into the sunset, she seems to bounce back. A broken elbow turned into an Olympic medal in Tokyo; missing Short Course Worlds in December turned into this breakout in May. She has gotten very good at decision-making in the late stages of career, choosing her moments and her meets and her races carefully. A lot of swimmers of her caliber can’t do that – they either need to be the six-event dynamos they used to be, or they lose interest.

What’s next for Sjostrom will be the most curious chapter of her storied career. After this weekend, she clearly remains the favorite in the 50 free and 50 fly (she won World Championships in both last summer, albeit missing a few key competitors).

But what about the 100 fly? With Torri Huske going 55-mids consistently, a place Sjostrom hasn’t been since 2017, can she still compete? Or is she better investing that energy into the 100 free, where she won silver at Worlds last year, and where there’s competition but also an opportunity for her?

And then there’s a whole other set of questions about whether the window is still open for a Swedish medley relay to find a podium spot in Paris with Sjostrom, the Hansson sisters, and a yet-unconfirmed fourth.

For everything Sjostrom has accomplished in swimming, which is almost everything, two of the few gaps in her resume are multiple gold medals in a single Olympics or an Olympic medal in a relay.

Remember the 2016 Olympics, the ones intended to make Sjostrom immortal, she won a gold, a silver, and a bronze – missing the final in the 50 free at a meet where four golds was the ceiling. Had she taken a second or even a third gold at that meet might have cemented her claim to second-best female swimmer of all time.

But she still has an opportunity, and seemingly ready to let the 100 fly go and focus on the 50 and 100 free in 2024, that could be an incredible capstone to an incredible career.