By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
See all of our 2025 Swammy Awards here
2025 Comeback Swimmer of the Year: Luca Urlando, United States
Luca Urlando had an exceptional year, and it came after half-a-decade of uncertainty and setbacks that could have taken him out of the sport entirely.
Urlando’s story starts in June of 2019, when he broke Michael Phelps‘s 17-18 National Age Group Record in the men’s 200 butterfly, swimming 1:53.84. This swim made him the 3rd fastest American of all-time in the event and put him on a massive upward trajectory that people thought would see him challenge the top butterflyers in the world.
Just over six months later, he dislocated his shoulder during a swim practice just months before the originally planned U.S. Olympic Trials. Soon after, a worldwide pandemic hit, and the Olympics were postponed until 2021, which gave him more time to recover.
He swam his freshman year at Georgia, setting a few personal best times, ultimately finishing 4th in the 200 fly at the 2021 NCAA Championships where he broke 1:40 for the first time in the SCY event to swim 1:39.75.
Despite his NCAA success, at the rescheduled 2021 Olympic Trials, Urlando finished 3rd in the 200 fly, touching in 1:55.43 to miss an Olympic berth by just .09 seconds, and 3rd in the 100 fly with his 51.64.
He raced the 2022 NCAA season, where he had some very strong performances, breaking the NCAA record in the 100 backstroke to lead off the men’s 400 medley relay. He also finished 2nd in the 100 and 200 fly and 3rd in the 200 IM to wrap up his sophomore year with the Bulldogs.
He ended up winning the event at the 2022 International Team Trials and he seemed poised to be making a full recovery. At the 2022 World Championships, he qualified for the final in the 200 fly, where he finished 5th overall, but his finals time of 1:54.92 was more than a second slower than he swam as a 17-year-old.
Just a few months later, however, Urlando suffered another shoulder injury, dislocating it during the 100 IM at the 2022 FINA World Cup in Indianapolis. Just over a week later, he announced on Instagram that he would be sitting out the remainder of the 2022 season to undergo shoulder surgery to prevent further dislocations.
He returned to racing in the summer of 2023 and took another redshirt year from the NCAA season to focus on his rehab. This turned out well for Urlando, and led to his first Olympic qualification in the 200 fly, which he won at the 2024 Olympic Trials, but he failed to move past the prelims, finishing 17th overall.
The 2024-2025 season saw Urlando return to Georgia for the college season and in January of 2025, he finally took down the NCAA record in the men’s 200 butterfly, swimming 1:37.17 to drop more than a second-and-a-half from his previous best 1:38.82 from 2022.
After that swim, it was like a flip switched. At the 2025 NCAA Championships, he took the record even lower, swimming 1:36.43 to win his first individual NCAA title. He also finished 3rd in the 100 fly in a new personal best 43.49.
The next week, Urlando swam his first best time in the long course 200 fly since 2019 to win the Sacramento stop of the Pro Swim Series. He touched in 1:52.37 to take 1.47 seconds off his previous best but it moved him up to the 4th fastest performer in history and 2nd fastest American.
At the USA Swimming Nationals, he won the 200 fly to qualify for the 2025 World Championships in Singapore, where he was a bright light on the American men’s team. He won the only individual gold medal of the meet for the American men, setting a new personal best 1:51.87.
This swim was a long time coming for him, and it was more than five years in the making for him. He wrapped up the year with one more record, breaking his own NCAA record in the 200 fly at the UGA Fall Invitational, swimming 1:36.41.
After winning the gold in Singapore, he said “It has felt like a six-year process to get back to this moment, a lot of doubt, a lot of really hard times, a lot of things people don’t see on an everyday basis. I kind of told myself post-surgery if I could get through those next few months then nothing could really stop me. Obviously, getting to do it on a world stage like this is just amazing.”
USA Swimming got rid of the Golden Goggle award for Perseverance this year, but Urlando would have been the clear choice for the win. He did take home the award for the Male Swimmer of the Year at the ceremony.
Honorable Mentions
Lani Pallister, Australia: Lani Pallister has been on a few honorable mentions list this year, and she was another clear choice for this award. In 2019, she won the 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, and 1500 free at the World Junior Championships, showing off a strong distance prowess. She struggled a little over the next few years and had a difficult start to 2021 from an eating disorder in January to the exacerbation of her heart condition — Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) — and a heart procedure all in the same six months in 2021. She missed qualification for the Tokyo Olympics that summer and began training steadily leading to an Olympic berth in the 400, 800, and 1500 freestyle, but the 3rd day of competition, she tested positive for COVID-19. She ultimately won a gold medal as a member of Australia’s 800 freestyle relay, but finished 6th in the 800. At the 2025 World Championships, she won a silver in the 400 free and a bronze medal in the 1500 free as well as another gold in the 800 free relay, completing her own comeback and breaking out into the top of the sport. A lot of people have focused on her silver medal in the women’s 800 freestyle, which was the race of the meet at the 2025 World Championships, but she had a lot of other exceptional swims throughout the year. At the Swimming World Cup, she finished her meet with a triple crown in the distance events and a new World Record in the women’s 800 freestyle, shattering Katie Ledecky‘s former record. Anna Elendt, Germany: Anna Elendt looked like she was going to be the next big thing in the breaststroke events at the 2022 World Championships. She was coming off a strong NCAA season that saw her finish 2nd in the 200 breaststroke and she went on to pick up a silver medal in the 100 breast in Budapest, touching in 1:05.98 to come in just five hundredths behind Italy’s Benedetta Pilato. After that, she seemed to struggle internationally. At the 2023 World Championships, she missed the semifinal entirely after touching 19th in the prelims of the 100 breast in 1:07.09, and she was 12th in the 50 breast. At the Paris Olympics in 2024, it was the same story. She touched in 1:07.00 to finish 20th overall, again missing the semifinal. She opened 2025 strong, swimming 1:05.72 at the German Championships in May, which was her fastest time since she went 1:05.58 in the summer of 2022. In the World Championships semifinal, she finished 7th in 1:06.13 to earn lane 1 for the final. In the final, she blasted a 1:05.19 to win the gold medal by almost a tenth-of-a-second over Kate Douglass, taking down the German record in the process. Elendt finished her year at the European SC Championships, where she won the 200 breast, finished 4th in the 100 breast, and finished 7th in the 50 breast.PREVIOUS WINNERS
2024: Paige Madden, United States 2023: Cam McEvoy, Australia 2022: Ruta Meilutyte, LithuaniaRead the full story on SwimSwam: 2025 Swammy Awards: Comeback Swimmer of the Year
Hence then, the article about 2025 swammy awards comeback swimmer of the year 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 ( 2025 Swammy Awards: Comeback Swimmer of the Year )
Also on site :
- Rainbow Six Siege Servers Reportedly Breached — Players Urged to Avoid Logging In
- 2026 NBA Mock Draft: Dybantsa Over Peterson? Bulls (Almost) Out of the Lottery!
- Suns’ Mark Williams questionable for 2nd game of back-to-back, Grayson Allen remains out