Another Olympics had come and gone and Paris 2024 delivered immensely for the global swimming audience. Each of the 17 swimming sessions at La Defense Arena on the north side of Paris brought the energy, leaving a lasting, memorable impact on the athletes and fans that attended.

Across the championships from Doha, Paris and Budapest, here are the highlights from the year of 2024.

Leon the Professional

When thinking back to the Games in Paris, conversations start and end with French superstar Leon Marchand. The 22-year-old coached by Bob Bowman had a lot of hype around him in the two year lead-up to the Games. When he broke out at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships with gold medals in the 200m and 400m IM, the latter being the fastest time anyone had swum since the greatest of all-time Michael Phelps in 2008, Marchand was deemed the real deal.

And Marchand kept getting better.

In 2023, he wiped Phelps’s last remaining world record off the books in the 400m IM, and collected two additional World titles in the 200m butterfly and 200m IM.

All roads led to what he could do at a home Games in Paris, and Marchand delivered in every possible way.

When he walked out for the 400m IM final on July 28, the arena erupted with chants of his name. When he swam breaststroke, deafening cheers of “Allez!” roared from the 15,000 people. When he touched the wall in the 400m IM, he was nearly six seconds ahead of the second place finisher.

The world watched with awe when he out-kicked Kristof Milak, one of the best kickers in the world, on the last 50m of the 200m butterfly. And two hours later, he won the 200m breaststroke final with relative ease, taking down defending champion Zac Stubblety-Cook.

Two days later, President Emmanuel Macron was in the audience to watch him dominate the 200m IM final, while the crowd got to sing La Marseillaise for the fourth time that week.

"I'm not sure there's been anything like this,” Bowman said after the 400m IM final. “It was amazing, really, to have that home-team energy. It was crazy. I feel like it's something I haven't really seen in a meet."

He became the third swimmer after Phelps and Kristin Otto to win four individual gold medals in a single Games, and he was launched into superstardom in France. He has amassed 1.5 million followers on Instagram and has become the face of the sport.

Marchand followed up his Olympic campaign by wearing the Swimming World Cup crown alongside American Kate Douglass, as he broke one of the oldest short course world records in the 200m IM that was held by Ryan Lochte.

Next Gen Stars shine

In 2022, “the next generation” broke out at the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest. In addition to the aforementioned Marchand, juniors Summer McIntosh, David Popovici, Nicolo Martinenghi and Mollie O’Callaghan won gold medals in the Hungarian capital, citing a power shift in the landscape of swimming.

Young athletes break through each year in the sport, following up impressive junior careers in making the jump to the senior stage. It’s not easy to do, but when it happens, it’s a welcome sign for those in the sport. Two years later, all four athletes cemented their legacies with individual gold medals in Paris.

McIntosh joined the short list of athletes to win three individual golds at a single Games when she won the 200m butterfly and the 200m and 400m IM. McIntosh became the eighth straight double IM champion, keeping an impressive streak that started in 1996. McIntosh, a second generation Olympian, captured the world’s attention as a 14-year-old at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 when she fearlessly took on Ariarne Titmus and Katie Ledecky in the 400m freestyle final. Three years later, she won four medals in Paris, and is only getting better as she marches on.

Popovici had one of the most impressive finishes to win gold in the 200m freestyle, two years after he swam the fastest time since the shiny suit era of 2009. When Popovici closed his 2022, he was already being tabbed as “the next Ian Thorpe,” a difficult mantra to live up to for any 17-year-old. But after he broke the world record in the 100m freestyle before his 18th birthday while lacking the bulky muscle build of Caeleb Dressel and Kyle Chalmers, the swimming community knew it had a special talent on hand. When Popovici touched first in the 200m freestyle in Paris, it brought the label of gold medallist to a name that had already garnered a lot of attention, and thus launched him into swimming immortality.

Seven years after winning the World Junior title in 2017, Italian Martinenghi took down the greatest to ever do it in the 100m breaststroke final in Paris. All eyes in La Defense Arena were on whether Adam Peaty could join the exclusive club of three-time Olympic champions in the same event. Peaty’s biggest challenger? Well, it was thought to be China’s Qin Haiyang, the World champ from the previous year and the world record holder in the 200m. But when the race was swum, it was neither of those two names with the gold medal attached to their name - it was Martinenghi’s.

“I remember him coming through at World Juniors and thinking ‘this boy is going to be a bit of trouble,’” Peaty said in his press conference. Martinenghi, still the fastest junior all-time in the 100m breaststroke, followed through on that success with the greatest gold medal of them all.

For Australia’s O’Callaghan, she’s another in a long line of great freestylers to come out of the Land Down Under. O’Callaghan made her relay debut in Tokyo 2020, and a year later, became World champ in the 100m freestyle in 2022. A year later in 2023, she broke the vaunted 200m freestyle world record held by Federica Pellegrini and had a lot of talks around what she could do in the spotlight in Paris.

The Australians have a rich history in freestyle events, producing Olympic champions Dawn Fraser, Shane Gould, Jodie Henry and Emma McKeon. Alongside teammate and training partner Ariarne Titmus, O’Callaghan sat with the field for 150 meters, before turning on the jets on the final 50m to win the 200m freestyle final. At age 20, she got her individual gold medal, adding to Australia’s legacy in the process.

The greatest sprinter ever

Competing in her fifth Olympic Games, Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström had long been considered one of the greatest swimmers of all-time. The only knock that Sjöström wouldn’t be considered the greatest? She had never won a major 100m freestyle final at a Worlds or Olympics despite holding the untouched world record for seven years. Another knock? She only had one Olympic gold medal to her name - the 100m butterfly from eight years ago.

Of course, a broken elbow in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics three years ago hindered her ability to reach the top of the podium in Japan, and when she won silver in the 50m freestyle on the last day of competition, it was almost just as good as gold given the circumstances.

When Sjöström won the 100m freestyle on July 31, all those doubts were erased. After bronze at Rio 2016, and four silver medals at the World Championships from 2013 to 2022, Sjöström almost dropped the event entirely from her programme.

"I didn't think I would swim the 100 free,” Sjöström said. “After the freestyle relay the first day, I told my coach straight away, 'I don't think the 100 free is for me. No, I want to do the 50. I will rest until the 50'.

"He was like, 'No way. You need to go out there and see what you can do, no matter the outcome'. The staff made my mind (up to race in the 100m).

"I didn't know exactly what I could do, and I definitely didn't know what everyone else could do. I am proud of myself that I tried this."

Four days later, Sjöström unsurprisingly won the 50m freestyle for her third career Olympic gold medal. At age 31, Sjöström didn’t explicitly say she’d retire, but what a way to go out if this was the end.

"I'm not going to be better than this, this is the peak of my career for sure,” Sjöström said on the last night in Paris. “I'm so proud of what I've done my whole career. I'm going to continue swimming for many years, but I mean, how can I top this ever?"

It’s Dan Time!

Ireland hadn’t produced an Olympic champion since Michelle Smith won three golds in Atlanta 1996. Since then, Olympic finals were a rarity. So when Daniel Wiffen broke out in February with two titles in the 800m and 1500m freestyle at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Ireland had a reason to be excited in the months leading up to the Olympics.

Wiffen took down the likes of past Olympic champions Florian Wellbrock and Gregorio Paltrinieri head to head, swimming the fastest times in the world in both distance events in Qatar, setting up a big match race alongside Paltrinieri and Bobby Finke in Paris.

Wiffen had been steadily rising since making the Worlds final in the 800m in 2022. A student of the sport, Wiffen was keen on knowing what his competitors’ strengths and weaknesses were. When the 800m freestyle final dove into the pool, Wiffen kept Paltrinieri in his sights, often changing his breathing to see where the Italian was. Wiffen had to have known Paltrinieri’s last 50m was his weak spot, while it was Finke’s strength. So when he flipped with 100 meters to go, Wiffen turned on the jets, scooting by Paltrinieri and matching Finke’s finishing kick.

Wiffen became Ireland’s first Olympic champion in the pool in 28 years, five years before he was even born.

Fastest meet ever?

Is there a way to determine the fastest swim meet ever? With the median times increasing every year due to the nature of the sport, it’s unfair to continuously say each year is the fastest year ever. But the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) in Budapest saw 30 world records fall in short course meters. Is that enough to say the fastest meet ever?

American Gretchen Walsh was the centre of attention at the meet, collecting 11 world records in relays and individual events, including the 50m and 100m butterfly, 100m IM, and 50m freestyle. It seemed every time Walsh dove into the pool, the world record line was behind her.

At age 21, Walsh, speaking of legacies, has become one of the best swimmers in the entire world. After a big summer where she broke the 100m butterfly long course world record en route to silver in Paris, Walsh finished the year in style, collecting over $200,000 USD in prize money on world records alone.

“That time is the fastest time a woman has ever gone in the 100m butterfly, ever, period, anywhere,” Walsh told World Aquatics before the Championships in Budapest. “To even say that is so cool to me and it makes me realise I can do these things that many people think are impossible.”

The 30 world records came on the backs of nine world records at the Swimming World Cup in the month prior. Swimmers are more athletic than they’ve ever been, with more emphasis on dryland training. With swimmers being more fit, they’re able to swim faster even in the middle of heavy training, and this has partly led to the onslaught of world records in the short course pool.

The Greatest of All-Time

It feels incomplete to talk about the best moments of 2024 without mentioning American Katie Ledecky. At age 27, she became the first woman to win four gold medals in the same event at the Olympics, winning the 800m freestyle on August 3. In the history of the sport, only Ledecky and Michael Phelps have won the same event four times at the Olympics. Ledecky picked up another gold in the 1500m freestyle in Paris by 10 seconds, leaving the rest of the field in the dust once again.

She’s been undefeated in major meets in races over 800 meters since she first won Olympic gold as a 15-year-old in London 2012. No major injuries have deterred her greatness, and she has continued one of the most impressive swimming careers in the history of the sport. Los Angeles 2028 is a ways away, and perhaps she could ride off into the sunset four years from now. But for now, Ledecky has cemented her claim as one of the best swimmers to ever wear a pair of goggles.