To see all of the 2014 Swammy Award winners, presented by TYR, click here.
2014 Honoree: Ye Shiwen, China
In selecting a winner for this award, one interesting trend emerged.
China’s Ye Shiwen, by her own lofty standards set during the last Olympic cycle, didn’t really have that spectacular a year.
But even so, she’s still far and away the top female swimmer in Asia.
Ye was the only female swimmer to sweep an entire stroke discipline at the 2014 Asian Games, winning the 200 IM and 400 IM, and neither race was terribly close. Ye won the 200 IM by over a second and a half, and took the 400 IM (where she’s the reigning Olympic gold medalist) by nearly 6.
Yet despite not being pushed much the entire season, Ye still managed to put up times that challenged the world’s elite. Her winning 200 IM time from Asian Games wound up 4th in the world for 2014, and was just eight tenths of a second behind world leader Katinka Hosszu.
Her best 400 IM time of the year, meanwhile, came at Chinese Nationals back in April. That time of 4:30.84 was an early world leader that no swimmer on the planet could match. Not at Commonwealth Games. Not at the Pan Pacific Championships. Not at European Championships. Not at any of the various national championship meets that each federation hosted, nor at the Asian Games in September.
What makes that swim even more impressive is that Ye wasn’t even at her best that week – the 18-year-old actually skipped the 200 IM later at that meet while dealing with a stomach illness.
On top of all that, Ye also showed her value to her nation by leading off the Chinese 4×100 free relay at Asian Games, a relay that won gold despite China’s lack of sprinters – both elite-tier sprinters and depth to fill out the relays. While Shiwen isn’t a world-beater in the sprints, she’s versatile enough to help China overcome its lack of depth, and it’s only fair to expect that she’ll improve in the sprints as she continues to develop – after all, Ye is only 18 years old.
When the world’s best IMer can pull spot duty in helping your sprint free relays earn gold medals at the international level, you know you’ve got an all-around superstar – a legitimate “MVP” candidate.
Honorable Mentions
In no particular order
- Kanako Watanabe, Japan – Watanabe was one of the few female swimmers to successfully challenge China’s dominance in the medal tables at the Asian Games. Watanabe led a 1-2 finish for Japan in the 200 breast and also helped Japan earn gold in the 4×100 medley relay. That accounted for two of just four events where China didn’t take the gold medal on the women’s side. Watanabe also set the national 100 breast record in long course and won a gold and a silver individually at Pan Pacs.
- Shen Duo, China – that problem with Chinese sprinting we talked about above? Meet the solution. At just 17 years old, Shen was a terror at the Youth Olympic Games, earning five gold medals and breaking three Junior World Records, including the individual 100 free. Competing against seniors later in the year at the Asian Games, Shen won gold in the 100 and 200 frees, plus swam key legs on both winning sprint free relays for China.
- Miki Uchida, Japan – Uchida did for Japanese sprinting what Duo did for the Chinese. Uchida broke the national 50 free record in long course and the 100 free record short course, plus earned one gold, two silver and one bronze medal at the Asian Games.