World Aquatics Names Summer McIntosh, Leon Marchand 2025 Swimmers of the Year
For the second straight year, World Aquatics has named Summer McIntosh and Leon Marchand its World Swimmers of the Year.
Both repeat in that role after breakout campaigns at the 2024 Paris Olympics that they carried into the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore in 2025.
Female Swimmer of the Year McIntosh had one of the outstanding single-meet performances ever in June, winning five events and setting three world record at 2025 Bell Canadian Swimming Trials in Victoria, British Columbia. She set the world record in the women’s 400 freestyle at 3:54.18, improved her world record in the 400 individual medley to 4:23.65 and downed Katinka Hosszu’s long-standing mark in the 200 IM in 2:05.70. She also set the fastest textile time in history in the women’s 200 fly and the No. 2 all-time performance in the 800 freestyle.
The 19-year-old Canadian is the first swimmer to set three individual world records in the same meet since Michael Phelps at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the first woman to do so since Inge de Bruijn at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
In Singapore, McIntosh won gold in the 400 free, 200 fly, 200 IM and 400 IM to go with bronze in the 800 free. She won three gold and one silver medal at the Paris Olympics last year.
Marchand is again the recipient of the Male Swimmer of the Year honor. The Frenchman was an icon of the Paris Games, winning four gold medals in his home country. While his racing calendar was pared down in 2025, he remained outstanding in what he called “more like a transition year.”
His transition included a long-sought world record in the men’s 200 IM, the 23-year-old going 1:52.69 to annihilate the 14-year-old mark of Ryan Lochte by more than a second. He won gold in the race handily the next day in 1:53.68, added gold in the 400 IM and also helped France to a silver medal in the men’s medley relay.
