2026 European Championships Previews: Quadarella The Red-Hot Favorite In Women’s 1500 Free ...Middle East

By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam

European Swimming Championships

BY THE NUMBERS – WOMEN’S 1500 FREESTYLE

Only two European women have broken 16 minutes in the 1500 free so far this season, making this one of the weaker events on the schedule. However, the #2 performer in history is looking in better form than ever, and there are some youngsters pushing to make their mark.

The Favorite

Simona Quadarella set a huge new European record in the 1500 free last summer, hacking seven seconds off Lotte Friis’ 2013 mark as she finished just five seconds behind Katie Ledecky.

She clocked 15:31.79, nine seconds under her previous best, and her performances this season are indicating that this is now her current level. She has already posted a 15:46.19 this season at the Sette Colli, not just her fastest in-season performance ever but also the tenth-fastest performance in European history.

Quadarella is a three-time European champion in the event, winning in 2018 (15:51.61), 2021 (15:53.59) and 2022 (15:54.15), but will be much faster this summer. She has broken 16 minutes three times already this season, and now has 34 swims under the barrier ever since her first 15-minute swim at the 2016 Rome Regional Championships.

She is also by far the most decorated women in this event among the current European Corps. She won world gold in 2019 when Katie Ledecky sat out with illness, but still clocked 15:40.89 to rank fourth all-time with the #12 swim in history at the time, and won the distance free double at the 2024 World Championships in Doha. She has three European gold medals in this event, eight in total, and seems to only be getting better as she moves into her late 20s.

Only two swimmers have beaten Quadarella in a 1500 free final since the 2024 Olympics – Isabel Gose at the 2024 World Short Course Championships, and Katie Ledecky at the 2025 World Championships. She has gotten used to winning recently, is in the best form of her career, and at her best is light years ahead of the field. Her performance up against Ledecky last year is even slightly underrated – the 15:30s had almost been Ledecky’s exclusive domain, with it taking 12 years for another swimmer to break 15:40 after Ledecky first did so in 2013.

Quadarella may not be as close to 15:30 this year, without Ledecky to pace herself off, but it would be a shock if she were challenged in the closing meters of this race.

The Challengers

The one woman who could make that happen was the last European to get the better of Quadarella. Both Anastasiya Kirpichnikova and Isabel Gose beat her at the Paris Olympics two years ago, but Gose did so again in December 2024 at the World Short Course Championships and only Gose of the pair is entered in this meet.

She is also the only other European women to be under 16 minutes this season, doing so twice with a 15:55.04 at the Malmstein Swim Open in early April followed by a 15:59.42 at the German Championships two weeks later. She was just on the other side of her barrier at the AP Race International at the end of May with a 16:01.42, but is still some way off the German record of 15:41.16 she set to win bronze in Paris.

Gose’s focus has been in shorter events than this over the last two years, and her fastest time since the 2024 Olympics is a 15:52.34 from the 2025 German Championships. She added time in a big way at the World Championships last summer as she placed 9th in 16:08.41, and has not won an international medal in the 1500 free outside of 2024, when she won world bronze, Olympic bronze, and world short course gold.

She does not have the same track record as Quadarella in the event, with just one swim under 15:50 and 13 under 16 minutes, but a podium place is a strong possibility due mainly to the lack of competition from elsewhere. Only three of the top ten finishers at the world championships last summer were European, and of those Kirpichnikova has barely competed this season.

If Gose can be under 16 minutes in Paris she will be on the podium – even her 16:08.41 from last summer would rank her fourth this season heading into the meet – and she is certainly capable of doing so. Quadarella has accelerated away from her, making a repeat of 2024 unlikely, but everyone else is still in the process of catching Gose. With limited competition, she should claim silver.

Kseniia Misharina is the third-fastest European woman so far this season, with swims of 16:03.42 and 16:05.46. She is coming off a successful European Junior Championships, where she won the 400 free, 800 free, and 1500 free, and has dropped nearly a second this year. She has more sprint speed than some of the others in this field, but did add time at her first world championships last summer. A similar time to her season-best could get her in the medals, so she will need to reverse that trend this year.

Medal Hopes and Finals Contenders

Behind Quadarella, there will be a pair of Italians fighting for the second spot in the final, with only two swimmers from each nation allowed to progress out of the heats. Ginevra Taddeucci has the edge on Noemi Cesarano in that battle with a season and lifetime best of 16:08.35 compared to 16:16.27, although she is more of an open water swimmer than pool swimmer.

Cesarano has dropped six seconds this season and placed 5th at the World University Games last summer, while Taddeucci has sliced off just over a second from last season’s best and has an 11th-place finish at the 2024 Olympics on her CV. She is the more likely swimmer to move through, but is probably a mid-pack finisher in the final.

Maya Werner was the European Short Course Championships silver medalist in December, and has lowered her long course best to 16:16.30 this season. She was a finalist at the world championships in the 400 free last summer but seems to be making the move up the the 1500 with no 200 free on her schedule this summer. A final seems within reach, but she will likely be in the tail end of the finishers in it.

Amelie Blocksidge burst onto the scene with a 16:20.28 at the age of 13, but despite multiple swims around the 16:20 mark since hasn’t really managed to kick on to become a consistent top-level performer in the event. She does have four swims down around 16:10, including a pair of matching 16:10.23s from the 2024 and 2025 European Junior Championships, but her season best is just 16:22.93, which makes her the 16th-fastest European so far this year.

Her drop last summer, when she was 13 seconds faster than her in-season best, is an encouraging sign, and she is still just 17 years old. However, what is probably limiting Blocksidge is her raw speed, despite her uncanny ability to to stick to a pace without any dropoff. She has not set a PB in either the 400 free or 800 free since 2024, and her times of 4:12.09 and 8:30.05 are some way behind those of the swimmers around her in the 1650.

Artemis Vasilikai has had significant drops already this season, lowering her Greek record in the 1500 free by six seconds with a 16:20.95 at the Acropolis Swim Open. If she can drop a little more time in the heats there is a good chance she makes the top eight, and she already has a European final in the event this season from the short course championships in December where she placed 4th.

Ajna Kesely won bronze back in 2018 as a 16-year-old, then placed 6th at the 2019 World Championships having clocked 15:54.48 in the heats. Her road has been a little rocky since, with only one swim under 16 minutes, from the heats at the Tokyo Olympics, and no other swims under 16:10. Her 16:20.95 season best is her sixth-fastest time since 2019, but she was 16th at the last world championships she swam this event at.

Vivien Jackl won the 2024 European Championships in 16:06.37, which still stands as her lifetime best. She has been 16:11.59 so far this season, which she swam to win silver at the European Junior Championships behind Misharina, and will be in the hunt for a finals spot. She hasn’t hit her best at major meets recently though, finishing 15th at the Olympics two years ago in 16:31.25 and 17th at last year’s World Championships in 16:29.60.

Paula Otero Fernandez is the 8th-fastest European woman so far this season, but with three Italians ahead of her she is in a clubhouse 7th. Her best of 16:16.61 is from three years ago, but she has been within a second with a 16:17.55 in March. She was 4th in 2022, and is one of only three return swimmers from that final.

SwimSwam’s Picks

Dark Horse – VIktoria Mihalyvari-Farkas (HUN)

Like Ajna Kesely, Farkas is a swimmer whose best times in the 1500 free are from a few years ago. She did win silver at the 2022 European Championships in 16:02.15, which still stands as her lifetime best, and placed 4th two years ago in 16:19.83. She has been just 16:27.50 this season, but if she can recapture the form of four years ago the podium could be within reach.

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