David Popovici & Marrit Steenbergen Named European Aquatics Athletes of the Year
David Popovici and Marrit Steenbergen have been voted male and female Athlete of the Year in the 2025 European Aquatics Awards.
Popovici got 37.94% of the vote ahead of Leon Marchand (31.52%) and Hubert Kós (16.57%) followed by Lukas Märtens and Maxime Grousset.
Popovici began a swashbuckling summer at the European U23 Championships in Samorin. There he lowered his European 100 free record to 46.71, taking 0.15 from his standard of 46.86 from the 2022 European Championships in Rome.
Photo Courtesy: Emily Cameron
He won the 200 in 1:43.64 and was third in the 50 in 21.86, the second fastest of his career.
Weeks later he arrived in Singapore for the World Championships where the 200 free was up first. There he made up a deficit of 0.65 on Luke Hobson at the final turn to go past the American for victory in 1:43.53.
The Romanian dipped inside 47 once more when he went 46.84 in the semis before coming from fourth at halfway in the final to take the title in 46.51 for another European record and the second-fastest time in history behind Pan Zhanle’s 46.40 world record.
It also saw Popovici replicate the 100/200 double he secured at the Budapest worlds in 2022.
Steenbergen’s Sustained Excellence
Steenbergen had a stellar year in both long and short-course competition.
The Netherlands swimmer garnered 36.29% of the total vote ahead of Simona Quadarella (24.48%) and Ruta Meilutyte (16.34%) followed by Anna Elendt and Roos Vanotterdijk.
In Singapore, Steenbergen came from joint third at halfway in the 100 free to go past the field and take the title in 52.55.
That followed an eye-watering performance in the 4x100m freestyle final where she dived in on the anchor leg with the Netherlands in eighth place. Out in 24.31 and back in 27.33, Steenbergen’s 51.64 split was the fastest in the field and propelled the quartet to the bronze medal.
Marrit Steenbergen; Photo Courtesy: Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
Steenbergen travelled to Lublin, Poland, for the European Short Course Championships where she won five golds and set five European records.
She began day three by winning the women’s 100m medley in 56.26, eclipsing the European mark of 56.41 set by Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu in 2017.
Ten minutes after her medal ceremony she added 200m freestyle gold in 1:50.33, lowering the 2017 mark of 1:50.43 established by Sarah Sjöström.
Two days later Steenbergen claimed another golden double. First, she won the 200IM in 2:01.83, bettering the 2:01.86 ER set by Hosszu in 2014 and just 0.20 shy of Gretchen Walsh’s world record.
She then took the 100 free title in 50.42 to slice 0.16 from Sjöström’s continental mark of 50.58 that had stood since 2017.
On the final day she led off the Netherlands 4x50m medley squad with an opening backstroke leg in 25.47 to take 0.02 off the European record set in the opening individual race of the final session by Italy’s Sara Curtis. With that she guided to quartet to victory and her fifth gold.
