USOPC Hall of Fame Elects Natalie Coughlin, Michael Phelps, Trischa Zorn-Hudson, 1976 Relay

Pre-World Championships Rankings: The Top 25 Female Swimmers in the World

Finally! Team USA’s 1976 Women’s 400 Freestyle Relay Receives Call to the USOPC Hall of Fame

Pre-World Championships Rankings: The Top 25 Female Swimmers in the World

With the next edition of the FINA World Championships approaching, it’s time to consider who are the best swimmers in the world. Certainly, ranking swimmers across different events is a highly subjective exercise, and we must choose whether to view consistency or best times or performances at major championship meets as more important.

This set of rankings will judge the 25 best swimmers in the world, with long course performances and abilities weighed most heavily. We are trying to see what swimmers are the best right now, a week-and-a-half out from the start of the Budapest Worlds, but given that many top swimmers have yet to compete at peak form this year, results from the Tokyo Olympics and other major meets will be weighed heavily as well. And even though many big names are skipping Worlds, they were still considered here because of their recent success and the likelihood that they will once again impact major international competition in the future, some even this year.

Finally! Team USA’s 1976 Women’s 400 Freestyle Relay Receives Call to the USOPC Hall of Fame

It was a week filled with frustration. A week of agony and pain. A week of what-if questions. As the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal unfolded, little went the way of the United States women. It wasn’t that the Team USA roster was weak or underperforming, either. The problem was a glaring issue out of the control of those in Red, White and Blue.
Event after event, East Germany sent its women to the medals podium, often following a world-record performance. Those athletes may have put in significant work in the pool. They may have been talented. But they also benefited from another influence: The use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In what is considered one of the darkest hours in the sport’s history, the Montreal Games – at least on the women’s side – was a meet that matched skill vs. illicit science. Not surprising, science came out on top, as East Germany ruled the medals table and repeatedly leveled the United States with a tainted hammer.

Michael Stephens Leaves Boston College to Take Top Job at Hawaii

Boston College head swimming and diving coach Michael Stephens has left to take the same job at the University of Hawaii, the schools announced Wednesday.

Stephens has spent most of the last decade and a half at Boston College. He graduated in 2012, as a team captain and one of the program’s best male breaststrokers. He became an assistant coach soon after, overseeing recruiting, and took the head coaching job in 2017 at the age of 26.

Stephens helped the Eagles break more than 120 school records and combine for 29 NCAA B standard/zone diving performances for a program perennially near the bottom of an ACC that has improved greatly in recent years. Stephens also had three women qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 and served as an assistant coach to the Barbados National Swim Team, with his swimmer Alex Sobers.