By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
European Swimming Championships
August 10-16, 2026 Paris, France — Olympic Aquatics Centre LCM (50 Meters) Meet Information Meet Central SwimSwam Preview IndexBY THE NUMBERS – WOMEN’S 100 BREASTSTROKE
World Record: 1:04.13 – Lily King, USA (2017) European Record: 1:04.35 – Ruta Meilutyte, Lithuania (2013) Championship Record: 1:05.53 – Yuliya Efimova, Russia (2018) 2025 World Champion: Anna Elendt (GER), 1:05.19 2024 European Champion: Eneli Jefimova (EST), 1:06.41The women’s 100 breast has had strong European presence at the world and Olympic level recently, with Anna Elendt winning gold at the World Championships last summer, Benedetta Pilato doing the same in 2022, and Ruta Meilutyte dominating in 2023.
This season there looks to be a new woman leading the charge. Angharad Evans was an Olympic finalist two years ago, but after a wildly successful Commonwealth Games in front of a home crowd in Glasgow the world could well be her oyster.
The New Favorite
Angharad Evans only made her first international team two years ago, but has gone from strength to strength since and comes in as the prohibitive favorite in this event. She brought her British record down under 1:05 at the Aquatics GB Championships in April, clocking 1:04.96, and posted a 1:04.98 at the Scottish Championships in June.
She made the final at the 2024 Olympics, her first international meet, and finished 6th in 1:05.85. Her lifetime best at the time was 1:05.54, set just months before at the AP Race International, which also stood as a new British record.
She has only improved since that first international appearance. She lowered her best to 1:05.37 at the 2025 Aquatics GB Championships, although added significantly to miss the semi-finals at the World Championships later that summer. The 2025/2026 season has been her best, with her first ever 1:04-point swims and five swims under 1:05.5.
She nearly cracked her British record with a 1:05.46 at the Edinburgh International meet in March, before posting the first 1:04-point swim by anyone for two years with a 1:04.96 at the Aquatics GB Championships. Further in-season swims of 1:05.13 and 1:04.98 cement her as the woman to beat.
Evans is also coming in as a major international champion. She won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 1:06.07, with a 1:05.34 in the semi-finals, and has finally gotten over the hump with a first international title. In front of a home crowd in Glasgow, she spoke of the relief at getting to the wall first, and should be swimming more freely in Paris. No one else in Europe comes close to her this season.
Medal Hopes
Anna Elendt is the reigning world champion in the 100 breast, touching out Kate Douglass from lane 1 in Singapore last summer. Elendt notched a German record of 1:05.19 there, a best time by over half a second, and now has two world championship medals after she claimed bronze in 2022.
She had been on a tear heading into that meet last summer, and hasn’t been quite as quick this year. Her season best stands at just 1:06.91, having posted a pair of 1:05-point swims last year, and she did struggle the season after her last world medal, missing the semi-finals at the World Championships in 2023.
She may be saving her taper more this year, but the 2024/2025 season, where she was fast throughout, was by far the best of her career. It may be more of a struggle for the German swimmer this year as she seeks her first European medal.
Benedetta Pilato placed second in 1:06.39 at the Italian Championships back in April, but confirmed her qualification for the European Championships thanks to a swim of 1:05.85 at the Sette Colli in June. She owns the Italian record with a swim of 1:05.44 from the Sette Colli in 2024, and will be swimming the 100 breast at a major international meet for the first time since missing the semi-finals at the 2024 World Short Course Championships.
Pilato has had more success in long course, winning gold at the 2022 World Championships in 1:05.93 and placing 4th at the 2024 Olympic Games in 1:05.60. She has however been relatively inconsistent in the event, missing qualification entirely in 2023 and 2025, and placing 9th at the 2024 World Championships.
Her 1:05.85 from the Sette Colli is her first sub-1:06 swim since the Paris Olympics and her fastest ever outside the 2023/2024 season. She looks in better form than last year, and seems to peak every other year in the event, a good sign for this season. Pilato won European gold in 2022 – may it be that she peaks in every other European Championships?
Mona McSharry set an Irish record of 1:05.51 in the semi-finals in Paris two years ago, before winning bronze in 1:05.59. Her summer last year was not quite so successful, as she placed 11th in the semi-finals in Singapore after touching in 1:06.33, a new season best.
She has been faster than that already this year, and looks in similar form to two years ago with multiple 1:06-mid to low swims so far in 2025/2026. She set multiple Irish records in the fall in short course, and has five swims in long course between 1:06.27 and 1:06.66. Breaking back into the 1:05s seems eminently doable for her, and she is already the third-fastest European woman so far this season. A first long course European medal could be on the cards for her.
Tes Schouten had a breakout 2023, but missed last season due to injury after placing 10th at the Olympic Games in the 100 breast. She also won bronze in the 200 breast in Paris after winning World Championship gold in February 2024, and was churning out regular 1:06-low swims.
This season has not been quite as consistently fast, but she has been building through the last few months. She was 1:09.90 in January, and has dropped time in each swim since to end up at 1:06.37 at Dutch Trials, where she was also 2:21.71 in the 200 breast. An in-form Schouten is a serious medal contender, but she added time in the 100 to miss the final in 2023 and 2024. The 200 will inevitably be her focus in Paris, with a strong chance for her to win a medal there, and that may see this event slip away from her slightly again.
NCAA Stars
Anita Bottazzo and Eneli Jefimova were the top two finishers at the NCAA Championships this March, with the latter adapting superbly well to her first season in the NCAA. Jefimova has had a strong international season so far as well, winning double gold at the European Short Course Championships.
She set new lifetime bests in both the 50 breast (28.81) and 100 breast (1:02.82), and comes into the long course edition with a season best time of 1:06.37, just ahead of the 1:06.41 she clocked to win gold at the 2024 European Championships. Her lifetime best is half a second faster at 1:05.81, which she posted last May, but she failed to make the final at the World Championships after placing 10th in the semi-finals in 1:06.28. She will be looking for a more successful summer this year, and could be a medal contender if she makes it safely through the earlier rounds.
Bottazzo had a fantastic World Championships last year with a 4th place finish in the 50 breast and a 6th place finish in the 100 breast, the latter in a time of 1:06.06.
She was nearly half a second faster in the semi-finals, however, at 1:05.61, which would have garnered her the bronze medal if she had been able to replicate that time in the final. She is around a second slower this year, with a season best of 1:06.89 from the Italian Championships, but this will be just her second year swimming the 100 internationally and she may be holding her taper even better than she did last year, when she dropped from 1:05.82 to 1:05.61.
The difficulty for Bottazzo is twofold – she is up against two other elite swimmers in Benedetta Pilato and Lisa Angiolini for the two semi-final spots available to Italian swimmers, and has just moved training base after transferring from Florida to Indiana. That disruption may not help her this summer, and she could well bow out in the heats unless she can drop down to near her best.
Final Contenders
Evgeniia Chikunova has been 1:06.75 this season, but her lifetime best is nearly two seconds faster at 1:04.92. That is more than three years old at this point though, and she has not broken 1:06 since the 2024 Russian National Swimming Cup, where she was 1:05.26. She placed 5th in Singapore last summer in 1:06.04, but that was less than a tenth of a second faster than her 1:06.13 in-season best. A similar drop this year would leave her on the outside looking in.
Another swimmer hoping to recapture their 2024 form is Belarus’ Alina Zmushka, who clocked 1:05.93 in the heats in Paris that summer before placing 8th in the final in 1:06.54. She was 1:06.09 last summer in Singapore before placing 7th in 1:06.38, and may need to reverse a habit of adding time in later rounds this summer. Her season best has been slightly slower in 2026 (1:06.84) than in 2025 (1:06.78), but if she can deliver her best in the later rounds then she has the talent to challenge this field.
Kotryna Teterevkova set her lifetime best of 1:06.02 at the 2024 World Championships, and was right on that time with a 1:06.17 in the semi-finals at the World Championships last summer. She ended up placing 8th in 1:06.61, but has made it through to at least the semi-finals in all three of her last major international competitions.
This year she has a season best time of 1:06.54, faster than she has ever been in-season before. That stands her in good stead to challenge the 1:06 barrier in Paris and make yet another major final.
Lisa Angiolini has been the one constant for Italy in this event recently, making the semi-finals in each of the last three summers as the only Italian to swim the event in all three years. Her best of 1:06.00 comes from 2024, but she was 1:06.33 at the Italian Championships to run down Benedetta Pilato and claim victory.
She won silver at this meet four years ago in a time of 1:06.34, and has posted times of 1:06.39 in 2024 and 1:06.40 last year at the major summer meets. Both of those were adds though, and her season best time of 1:06.33 is slower than she was in-season in 2024 (1:06.00) and in 2025 (1:06.01). With Anita Bottazzo and Pilato to contend with just to make it through to the semi-finals, she could bow out at the first hurdle this year.
SwimSwam’s Picks
Place Name Nation Season Best Lifetime Best 1 Angharad Evans GBR 1:04.96 1:04.96 2 Benedetta Pilato ITA 1:05.85 1:05.44 3 Mona McSharry IRL 1:06.27 1:05.51 4 Anna Elendt GER 1:06.91 1:05.19 5 Eneli Jefimova EST 1:06.37 1:05.81 6 Anita Bottazzo ITA 1:06.89 1:05.61 7 Evgeniia Chikunova RUS 1:06.75 1:04.92 8 Kotryna Teterevkova LTU 1:06.54 1:06.02Dark Horse – Dominika Sztandera (POL)
Sztandera owns the Polish record with a 1:06.42 from the 2023 World Championships, but comes in with a season best of just 1:07.61. She placed 15th at the World Championships last year in 1:07.34 after posting a 1:06.85 in the heats, but also set a new Polish record of 1:03.97 at the European Short Course Championships in December where she placed 5th. If she is back at her 2023 level, she could make life uncomfortable for some of the swimmers above.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2026 European Championships Previews: Evans The Firm Favorite In Women’s 100 Breast
Hence then, the article about 2026 european championships previews evans the firm favorite in women s 100 breast was published today ( ) and is available on swimswam ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( 2026 European Championships Previews: Evans The Firm Favorite In Women’s 100 Breast )
Also on site :