European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards 2025: men’s swimming nominees

France’s 26-year-old Maxime Grousset held off Switzerland’s Noe Ponti to win the men’s 50m and 100m butterfly world titles in Singapore, clocking a national record of 22.48 in the 50 and a European record of 49.62 in the 100.

He also helped France win 4x100m medley silver in a national record of 3:27.96 and mixed 4x100m freestyle in a national record of 3:21.35.

Grousset extended his season to take part in the European Aquatics Short Course Championships in Lublin, losing twice to Ponti before finding a way to beat him, by 0.01, in the 100m butterfly and adding a second title in the 100m freestyle.

Germany’s Lukas Maertens won the 400m freestyle title three months after becoming the first swimmer to go under 3:40.00 with a world record of 3:39.96.

 That took 0.11 off the mark his compatriot Paul Biedermann had set at the Rome World Championships in July 2009.

Hungary’s Hubert Kos had a season of high achievement as he added the world 200m backstroke title to his Olympic title in a European record of 1:53.19 and added bronze in the 200m individual medley.

There were also outstanding performances from the 24-year-old in short course racing.

Kos set world records in the 100m and 200m backstroke en route to winning the overall men’s World Aquatics Swimming World Cup title with a perfect record.

The first of the Hungarian’s world records came in the 200m backstroke on the first day of the Toronto World Cup as he clocked 1:45.12, lowering the 2015 mark of 1:45.63 set by Australia’s Mitch Larkin.

Two days later in Toronto he clocked a 100m backstroke time of 48.16 that eclipsed the mark of 48.33 set by Coleman Sweet of the United States in 2021.

Romania’s David Popovici repeated his 2022 world double in the 100m and 200m freestyle, lowering his own European record in the former event to 46.51 – just 0.11 off the world record.

Earlier in the summer at the second European Aquatics U23 Championships in Samorin the 20-year-old lowered the 100m freestyle European record to 46.71 en route to a 100/200m freestyle double.

France’s quadruple Paris 2024 champion Leon Marchand made a huge impact on his return to racing at the World Aquatics Championships.

The 23-year-old Texas-based athlete excelled himself in the 200m individual medley semi-finals in Singapore, lowering the world record by 1.31 seconds as he clocked 1:52.69 to better the previous world record of 1:54.00 set in 2011 by Ryan Lochte of the United States.

Marchand then secured gold in the 400m medley – his seventh individual world title.

Thirty minutes later he recorded a 58.44 spli for the breaststroke leg of the 4x100m medley final to help France secure silver in a national record of 3:27.96.

Marchand received the award for being the best male swimmer of the Championships. 

Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics

The post European Aquatics Athlete of the Year Awards 2025: men’s swimming nominees first appeared on European Aquatics®.