SwimSwam’s Top 100 For 2024: Women’s #90-81

After the record-setting year that was 2023, we’re gearing up for another exciting year over here at SwimSwam, and part of that is releasing our fourth annual Top 100 list—check out last year’s rankings here.

Similar to 2023, we’ve taken a statistically driven approach reliant primarily upon world rankings and World Championship medals. We’ve also taken into account things such as potential, Olympic medal opportunities, injuries, and versatility. Long course is weighted more than short course, though performance potential in both formats is factored in.

We’ve also moved Russian and Belarusian swimmers way down this list because of their likely absence from the Olympics or either World Championship meet. While that doesn’t preclude them from swimming fast at domestic meets (including whatever Russia comes up with to replace the Olympics), those swims just won’t mean quite as much without the international spotlight.

We’ll be breaking down the top 100 into multiple installments, so keep an eye out as they’re released.

These lists are, by nature, subjective. If you disagree, leave your thoughts/ranks in the comments.

Braden Keith, Sophie Kaufman, Anya Pelshaw and Mark Wild contributed to this report.

Women’s Rankings:

• #100 – #91
• #90 – #81
• #80 – 71
• #70 – 61
• #60 – 51
• #50 – #41
• #40 – #31
• #30 – #21
• #20 – #11
• #10 – #1

This next tier features a group of women who have shown flashes of Olympic final potential—and outside medal chances—in particular swims, but will need to be firing on all cylinders in Paris for a top-eight finish.

#90: Charlotte Bonnet, France – Bonnet is best known as a European champion 200 freestyler, but at 28 years old she’s found a new passion: breaststroke and IM. We can’t read too far into her Euro medals – the 100 IM was a pretty good win, but the 200 IM silver was just a so-so field. However, she did break the 50 and 100-meter breaststroke French Records at the French Championships. She swam the 200 breast and 200 IM at Worlds and didn’t even make semis in either, but a 2:10.64 in the 200 IM says there might still be a little gas left in her tank. Will she be rewarded for her twilight gamble in front of a home crowd?

#89: Abbie Wood, Great Britain – It wasn’t long ago that Wood, still only 24, was one of the great revelations of the International Swimming League. After some illnesses, though, she really seemed to lose that momentum. But the end of 2023 saw her catch a little spark, winning the 200 IM and 400 IM at the European Short Course Championships. Short course has always been her strength, and that won’t help her much in the Olympic pool (she was 18th in the 200 free at Worlds, didn’t swim the IM races), but there is a Short Course World Championship in 2024 – where she’s going to be contending for multiple medals.

#88: Letitia Sim, Singapore – Sim is making the most of her Olympic redshirt year at the University of Michigan. In October, she went to the World Cup Series in Berlin and swam a best time of 1:06.86 in the 100 breaststroke. She appears to have been training mostly with a Singapore-based training group (including a holiday training camp in Oman), and things are clicking for her right now.

#87: Louise Hansson, Sweden – Hansson, 27, was 9th at Worlds in the 100 fly. After a brilliant Olympics in Tokyo in 2021, she has regressed each season. The window is closing on the Swedish women’s medley relay that never quite came together for a medal, and with Sarah Sjostrom primarily in freestyle mode, Hansson is a key leg to that.

#86: Lisa Angiolini, Italy – If there was an event where you wouldn’t have expected a new, 28-year-old contender to emerge for the Italian women heading toward Paris, it would be the 100 breast. And yet here’s Angiolini, in her late 20s, producing the best swimming of her career, and a real shot at the Olympics. She went into COVID at 24 with a best time of 1:08.72, and is now going 1:06.00. If she can fight through a crowded Italian breaststroke field and earn a spot for Paris, a medal is not out of the question.

#85: Runa Imai, Japan – Imai was 2:22.93 domestically last year in the 200 breast, but wasn’t anywhere near as fast at either the World Championships or the Asian Games. The event is getting over a hump where it’s going to be really fast after a decade of stagnation. She’ll need to show up in Paris to make the final.

#84: Kiah Melverton, Australia – Melverton was 4:41 at Worlds in the 400 IM to miss the final, but she did swim 4:39 at the Australian Trials. Her restart swims in that 400 IM at the Queensland Championships in December was promising by her standards (4:50, about four seconds better than she was at the same meet last year). She also picked up a gold medal at Worlds in the 800 free relay as a prelim swimmer. With no signs of Madi Wilson and teenager Jamie Perkins‘ recovery from injury still unclear, she’s got a good shot at another one in 2024.

#83: Beatriz Dizotti, Brazil – Brazil used to be a ‘sprint country,’ but they’re having more and more success in the middle distance and distance freestyles internationally. That includes Dizotti, who broke the Brazilian Record and finished 7th at Worlds in the 1500 free. Her best is 16:01.95, and she’s bucking the trend with big distance drops into her 20s (she’s 23), so she could become the first South American woman under 16 minutes this year.

#82: Sophie Hansson, Sweden – Sophie Hansson, the younger of Sweden’s swimming Hansson sisters, was 7th at Worlds in the 100 breast. That women’s 100 breaststroke field isn’t getting any easier, though, in Paris, where it might take a 1:05-something to make the final. Hansson did that a bunch of times in the last Olympic year, but hasn’t done it since.

#81: Freya Anderson, Great Britain –Anderson had a semifinal rager in the 200 free at the 2023 World Championships, clocking 1:55.85 to make the final, where she was a bit slower and finished 7th. It’s going to be tough for her to leap that gap to the medalists who are now around 1:53s, but she could make finals in both the 100 and 200 free.