By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
Welcome to the SwimSwam Top 100 Swimmers of 2026: Women’s Edition. This is our outlook on the top 100 swimmers to watch globally in 2026.
Like most non-Olympic even-numbered years, the world of swimming will be scattered across the globe, with no real single meet to weigh the medals from most. That means times will rule the day in the 2026 rankings, which makes some things easier and some things harder.
The principles for ranking:
Trajectory Age Performance in 2023-2024-2025 (more recent results weighted more heavily) Anomalies to trajectories (one bad year doesn’t mean a swimmer isn’t still one of the best in the world, if it was pretty isolated or illness may have impacted performance) Versatility. A swimmer who might be #3 in the world in three events could leap a one-trick pony who is #1 or #2 in their best event and outside the top 10 in their next-best event. Competitive Atmosphere. A swimmer ranked #9 in the world in a more competitive event could be ranked higher than a finalist in a less competitive event.We start with data, and then debate, massage, re-rank, re-rank again, and eventually wind up with some vision of a top 100 that makes sense to our collective hivemind.
Note: we’ve excluded swimmers who have no sign of being in the pool in 2026, and hedged on others like Sarah Sjostrom that we expect to be back but don’t really know how they’ll be. These ranks always wind up a bit wonky because there’s so much opacity to the situations.
Women’s Rankings
#100 – #91 #90 – #81 #80 — #71 #70 — #61#60 Kaylene Corbett, South Africa (2025 Rank: NR) – Breaststroker Kaylene Corbett stepped into the South African vacancy in the women’s 200 breaststroke left by Tatijana Smith’s retirement following the Olympics. Corbett had qualified for the women’s 200 breaststroke final at two straight Olympic Games, but had not earned a medal at a major international meet until this year. At the 2025 World Championships in Singapore, Corbett finished 3rd in the women’s 200 breaststroke, touching in 2:23.52 to tie with Alina Zmusha for the bronze medal. Her time was a new season best and finished the season ranked 10th in the world. Her best stands at the 2:22.06 she swam in the Olympic final in Tokyo. This was her only top 20 ranking for the season.
#59 Elizabeth Dekkers, Australia (2025 Rank: 35) — After initially missing the 2025 Worlds team following her 3rd place finish in the 200 fly at Trials, Dekkers, 21, ended up earning a spot after Abbey Connor withdrew from the meet. This worked out well for Dekkers, who walked home with the bronze medal following her 2:06.12 performance in the final after she earned the top seed out of the semifinals. This swim was about a second off her lifetime best of 2:05.20 from the 2024 Australian Olympic Trials, but she finished the year ranked 6th in the world. She has the capability to drop back into the 2:05 range, and if she does, she will be yet another contender for the final and medal positions at the 2026 Pan Pacs which could feature the top 10 200 butterflyers in the world from 2025.
#58 Jamie Perkins, Australia (2025 Rank: 54) – Australian distance swimmer Perkins did not win any medals at the 2025 Worlds, but she qualified for the finals in the 200 free and the 400 free. In the 200 free final, she swam 1:56.55 to finish 7th, about a second off the 1:55.44 personal best she swam at the Australian Trials. She actually finished 3rd in the event at Trials, but Lani Pallister scratched the event at Worlds, which allowed Perkins to swim. In the 400 free final, Perkins was 4:03.20 to finish 6th overall, a new personal best time. She finished 2025 ranked 11th in the 200 free and 10th in the 400 free. She also had a top 20 ranking in the 800 free with the 8:25.20 she swam at the Australian Team Trials. Perkins turned 21 just a few weeks ago, and has established herself as a staple in Australia’s mid-distance free events going into the busy 2026 season.
#57 Tess Howley, United States (2025 Rank: NR) – In a year where times are the top priority over everything else, American Tess Howley moves far up the list, despite missing the 2025 Worlds qualification. Howley finished 3rd in the 200 fly at the United States Nationals, coming in behind Caroline Bricker and Regan Smith in a new personal best time of 2:06.79. Just a month later at the World University Games, Howley swam a massive 2:05.20 in the final to become the 3rd fastest American in history and set the 3rd fastest time in the world for 2025, only behind Summer McIntosh and Regan Smith. Bricker sat more than half-a-second back, and if Howley can match that performance at Pan Pacs, she should walk away with a medal, even at the most competitive women’s 200 fly meet in the world for 2026. Howley also ranked 12th in the world in the 200 backstroke with the 2:07.79 she swam at the U.S. Nationals in June, and she was the eighth ranked American.
#56 Anita Bottazzo, Italy (2025 Rank: NR) – Italian breaststroker Anita Bottazzo qualified for two event finals at the 2025 World Championships, finishing 4th in the 50 breast at 30.21 and 6th in the 100 breast at 1:06.06. In the 100 breaststroke, she swam a personal best of 1:05.61 in the semifinal, coming within two tenths of Benedetta Pilato’s Italian Record time of 1:05.44 from June of 2024. Her best time in the 50 breast stands at 30.02 from the 2023 World Championship prelims, and she was just over a tenth off that time at the Canadian Swimming Trials, where she touched in 30.15. Her season best times finished 2025 ranked 8th in the 50 and 6th in the 100. Bottazzo is currently training at the University of Florida where she has been having a monster season, including setting multiple new personal bests in the 200 breast SCY (2:06.97) and dropping her 100 time to lead the NCAA in 56.87. Her current NCAA performance lends to the idea of a strong 2026 for the Italian.
#55 Peng Xuwei, China (2025 Rank: NR) – China’s Peng Xuwei recently turned 23, and is coming off an incredibly strong performance in 2025. Going back to 2024, she only qualified to swim one event, the 200 backstroke, at the Paris Olympics, finishing 6th in 2:07.96. In 2025, she qualified to swim both the 100 and 200 backstroke events after finishing 2nd in the 100 back and 1st in the 200 back at the Chinese National Championships. In Singapore, she set a personal best in the 100 back, touching in 59.10 to finish 5th in the event, dropping from the 59.27 she swam back in September of 2021. In the 200 back, she swam 2:07.22, a little more than half a second off the personal best 2:06.54 she swam at the Chinese Spring Nationals in March of 2025. This swim took one hundredth off her previous best of 2:06.55 from back in 2017 and finished the year ranked 5th in the world. Her 100 backstroke time was 15th in the world. Her progression in both backstroke events for the first time in years points to the potential for a huge year for Peng, especially because her backstroke competition at Pan Pacs is going to bring the best out of her if she wants to earn a medal.
#54 Alina Zmushka, Belarus (2025 Rank: 64) – The other half of the women’s 200 breaststroke tie in Singapore was Belarusian swimmer Alina Zmushka. After setting a personal best and new national record time in May at the Mare Nostrum in Spain of 2:23.30, she tied with Corbett for the 3rd place time at the World Championships behind Kate Douglass and Evgenia Chikunova. She touched in 2:23.52, about two tenths over her personal best, but still more than half-a-second faster than her preseason best of 2:24.14 that she swam at the 2024 World Championships. Zmushka has been on an upward trajectory in the event with her top six times in history all coming from 2024 or 2025. She also qualified for the 100 breast final, finishing 7th in 1:06.38 after swimming a season best 1:06.09 in semifinals, which was her 2nd fastest time ever. She finished the year ranked 13th in the world, only about a tenth off her best of 1:05.93 from the Paris Olympics. Just like in the 200, Zmushka has been on an improvement curve in the 100, setting her five fastest times over the last two years.
#53 Freya Colbert, Great Britain (2025 Rank: 41) – Colbert reinvented herself in 2025, and it worked out extraordinarily well as she finished the year with a British record and nearly a full second drop in the 200 freestyle. Colbert came into the year billed as an IMer after she won the 400 IM at the 2024 World Championships in Doha, and raced the 200 and 400 IMs in Paris, ultimately finishing 4th in the 400 IM. She also led off the 800 freestyle relay in Paris, setting a personal best 1:55.95. At the GB Championships in April, Colbert did not swim the 200 IM and finished 2nd in the 400 IM, but she won the 200 free in a personal best 1:55.76. In Singapore at the World Championships, Colbert finished 8th in the 400 IM, touching in 4:40.21, more than five seconds off her personal best 4:34.01 from the 2024 GB Championships. In the 200 free, however, she dropped another huge chunk of time, swimming 1:55.06 to take down the super suited British record of 1:55.54 from 2009 and finish 4th in the event. She wrapped up the season ranked 7th in the 200 free and 18th in the 400 IM. If she can get back to her former speed in the 400 IM and even the 200 IM while maintaining her 200 free speed, she could easily earn multiple medals at Euros.
#52 Sarah Sjostrom, Sweden (2025 Rank: NR) – Swedish sprinter and World Record holder Sarah Sjostrom did not compete in 2025, taking the year off to have a baby. Her son Adrian was born at the end of August, and in October, she posted that she was back in the water training. Sjostrom has not confirmed a return for 2026, which is why she is this far back on the list. She could still show up and race at the European Championships or the SC Worlds in December and make a serious impact on the medal table. In 2024, Sjostrom won gold medals in the 50 and 100 freestyle at the Paris Olympics, and she is currently the World Record holder in the long course 50 free, 100 free, and 50 fly.
#51 Phoebe Bacon, United States (2025 Rank: 44) – Phoebe Bacon has made every American International team roster since 2021, with the exception of the 2023 Worlds. She is one of the top swimmers in the country in three different events and has made the international team in two different 200s of stroke, which are not relay events. Until this year, all of her senior international experience came in the 200 backstroke, one of the hardest events to be good at in the United States right now. She finished 4th in the event at the Paris Olympic Games, and then raced it again at 2024 SC Worlds, again finishing 4th. During 2025, she began focusing more on the 200 IM, setting a few SCY personal bests heading into the 2025 U.S. Nationals. At Nationals, she finished 2nd in the event, setting a personal best time of 2:09.22. She did not make the team in the 200 backstroke, finishing 4th in 2:06.79 and she was 5th in the 100 at 58.80. At Worlds, she finished 13th in the semifinal, adding about two seconds to touch in 2:11.53. She held three top-20 rankings in the world, though, coming in at 8th in the 100 back, 8th in the 200 back, and 11th in the 200 IM. Since she is already on the Pan Pacs team, she can swim all three events in prelims, and the top two swimmers move on, giving her an excellent chance at both a medal and a top time in the world.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: SwimSwam’s Top 100 For 2026: Women’s #60-51
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