A few days ago, we learned that Bruno Fratus is nearing the 100th sub-22 long course 50 free swim of his career. He is the swimmer with the most 21-point swims in history.
But what about women? Who are the swimmers who have the most swims under the magical 24-second barrier?
First of all, the 22-second barrier for men and the 24-second barrier for women are at different levels. It’s been more than 30 years since male swimmers first started registeingr 21-second swims, while the first sub-24 swim by a female swimmer happened less than 15 years ago. Fratus is nearing his 100th sub-22, and no woman has broken the 24-second barrier more than 17 times.
Instagram’s Swimming Stats page has published the list of all the female swimmers who have broken the 24-second barrier in history – there are 12 in total.
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In 2022, we have yet to see a sub-24. But Swedish superstar Sarah Sjostrom has been showing consistency and registered the three fastest times of the year during the Mare Nostrum Tour last week, all of them very close to venturing into 23-second territory (24.06, 24.08 and 24.11).
This is no surprise since Sjostrom has managed to register very fast times repeatedly over the years. Given that consistency, it’s easy to see why she’s the swimmer with the most sub-24 swims in history, 17 since 2014.
The 28-year-old Swede is the current world record holder (23.67) and won the event at the 2017 World Championships, but hasn’t cracked the 24-second barrier since 2019. Last year she underwent surgery after fracturing her elbow in February, and if it wasn’t for that, she probably would have adding to her total at the Tokyo Olympics – she won the silver medal in 24.07.
Sjostrom has already announced that the 50 free will be her main focus for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, so we can expect more sub-24 swims from her in the next two years.
Australian Cate Campbell is the closest to Sjostrom with nine sub-24 swims over her career. Amazingly, she cracked the 24-second barrier for the first time when she was 17, and for the last time in 2021 when she was 29.
Curiously, of all 42 sub-24 swims we’ve seen in the history of the women’s 50 free, only one was set during the Olympic Games: Emma McKeon‘s 2021 winning time of 23.81.
The table below shows all 17 of Sjostrom’s sub-24 swims in her career, listed in chronological order.
| Number | Time | Date | Event | City | Round |
| 1 | 23.98 | 7/4/2014 | SWE Nationals | Boras | Final |
| 2 | 23.83 | 4/8/2017 | Swim Open | Stockholm | Final |
| 3 | 23.87 | 5/5/2017 | Bergen Swim Festival | Bergen | Final |
| 4 | 23.95 | 6/10/2017 | Mare Nostrum | Monaco | Final |
| 5 | 23.96 | 6/13/2017 | Mare Nostrum | Barcelona | Final |
| 6 | 23.85 | 6/17/2017 | Mare Nostrum | Canet-en-Roussillon | Final |
| 7 | 23.85 | 6/30/2017 | SWE Nationals | Boras | Final |
| 8 | 23.67 | 7/29/2017 | World Championships | Budapest | Semifinal |
| 9 | 23.69 | 7/30/2017 | World Championships | Budapest | Final |
| 10 | 23.96 | 7/4/2018 | SWE Nationals | Landskrona | Final |
| 11 | 23.74 | 8/3/2018 | European Championships | Glasgow | Final |
| 12 | 23.92 | 8/3/2018 | European Championships | Glasgow | Semifinal |
| 13 | 23.83 | 9/7/2018 | FINA Swimming World Cup | Kazan | Final |
| 14 | 23.99 | 9/13/2018 | FINA Swimming World Cup | Doha | Final |
| 15 | 23.91 | 4/12/2019 | Swim Open | Stockholm | Final |
| 16 | 23.97 | 5/12/2019 | FINA Champions Swim Series | Budapest | Final |
| 17 | 23.78 | 6/28/2019 | SWE Nationals | Malmoe | Final |
Yet, Sarah Sjostrom failed to medal in the women’s 50 meter freestyle at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Same goes for Cate Campbell.
The Queen of sub 53 in 100, but never won Olympics gold in individual events.
Sarah had a very busy schedule in 2016, she medaled in the 100, almost beat Ledecky in the 200, and got a wr in the 100 fly. In 2017 she let it rip with a dominating 50
So? She’s the WR holder and a double world champion. Why do you always have to try to bring athletes down?
… and it took Fratus going under 22 more than 90 times before getting an Olympic Bronze… The point of these two articles is celebrating the phenomenal consistency of these amazing athletes. Let’s enjoy them for that… and celebrate them like Fratus celebrated his medal!!!
I am not sure which time might be missing in FINA’s database as they show 41 times under 24 seconds for the women. The 41st time on the men’s all-time ranking (based on the FINA database) is 21.36 by Frederick Bousquet from the 2010 Euro Champs.
The FINA database shows that the Top 200 time for the men’s 50 LCM free is equal to 21.61 and the Top 200 time in the women’s 50 CLM free is 24.26
A drawback with the FINA database is that a fair amount of times are missing, ex Matt Biondi‘s 21.85 from the race where Tom Jaeger lowered his own World Record from 21.98 to 21.81 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMT-vPMAoIA . Before this meet, Tom Jaeger has the world record with a 22.12.
The FINA database says that there have been 105 male swimmers under 22 seconds, but as mentioned above, at least 1 person is missing from that list. The 105th woman, according to the database, is listed with a 24.84
I get that these are somewhat arbitrary but is there a reason not to do the 25 second barrier? Feels like that would be much closer equivalent to the men’s 22 albeit I think the women would be way higher in numbers on this one.
Although it doesn’t look as pretty I think 24.5 might be the number for women if trying to compare to 22 for men
I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t well over 100x at 24.5