With our Top 100 For 2022 series coming to a close, it’s time to revisit the rankings as we look ahead to a fast year of swimming.
While it appears as though there won’t be another World Championship meet until July 2023, the rankings were put together prior to this announcement and reflect where we would rank swimmers assuming there would be a best-on-best competition this year.
Caeleb Dressel repeats as our top-ranked men’s swimmer in 2022, with four more 2021 Olympic champions joining him in the top five.
See the full lists:
Check out the Top 100 Men For 2022 below:
| Ranking | Swimmer | Country |
| 1 | Caeleb Dressel | USA |
| 2 | Adam Peaty | Great Britain |
| 3 | Evgeny Rylov | Russia |
| 4 | Bobby Finke | USA |
| 5 | Kristof Milak | Hungary |
| 6 | Daiya Seto | Japan |
| 7 | Duncan Scott | Great Britain |
| 8 | Kliment Kolesnikov | Russia |
| 9 | Ryan Murphy | USA |
| 10 | Kyle Chalmers | Australia |
| 11 | Florian Wellbrock | Germany |
| 12 | Wang Shun | China |
| 13 | Arno Kamminga | Netherlands |
| 14 | Tom Dean | Great Britain |
| 15 | Zac Stubblety-Cook | Australia |
| 16 | Ahmed Hafnaoui | Tunisia |
| 17 | Michael Andrew | USA |
| 18 | Ilya Shymanovich | Belarus |
| 19 | Carson Foster | USA |
| 20 | David Popovici | Romania |
| 21 | Mykhailo Romanchuk | Ukraine |
| 22 | Nicolo Martinenghi | Italy |
| 23 | Gregorio Paltrinieri | Italy |
| 24 | Kieran Smith | USA |
| 25 | Hwang Sunwoo | South Korea |
| 26 | Noe Ponti | Switzerland |
| 27 | Chase Kalisz | USA |
| 28 | Elijah Winnington | Australia |
| 29 | Shoma Sato | Japan |
| 30 | Gabriele Detti | Italy |
| 31 | Thomas Ceccon | Italy |
| 32 | Andrei Minakov | Russia |
| 33 | Ilya Borodin | Russia |
| 34 | Brendon Smith | Australia |
| 35 | Jack McLoughlin | Australia |
| 36 | Tomoru Honda | Japan |
| 37 | Luke Greenbank | Great Britain |
| 38 | Federico Burdisso | Italy |
| 39 | Fernando Scheffer | Brazil |
| 40 | Jay Litherland | USA |
| 41 | Alessandro Miressi | Italy |
| 42 | Martin Malyutin | Russia |
| 43 | Nic Fink | USA |
| 44 | Matthew Sates | South Africa |
| 45 | Chad Le Clos | South Africa |
| 46 | Danas Rapsys | Lithuania |
| 47 | Alberto Razzetti | Italy |
| 48 | Leon Marchand | France |
| 49 | Luca Urlando | USA |
| 50 | Zach Apple | USA |
| 51 | Xu Jiayu | China |
| 52 | Ben Proud | Great Britain |
| 53 | Felix Auboeck | Austria |
| 54 | Matthew Temple | Australia |
| 55 | Jakub Majerski | Poland |
| 56 | Josif Miladinov | Bulgaria |
| 57 | Joshua Liendo | Canada |
| 58 | Vladimir Morozov | Russia |
| 59 | Mitch Larkin | Australia |
| 60 | Robert Glinta | Romania |
| 61 | Lewis Clareburt | New Zealand |
| 62 | Jeremy Desplanches | Switzerland |
| 63 | Mack Horton | Australia |
| 64 | James Wilby | Great Britain |
| 65 | Hubert Kos | Hungary |
| 66 | Hugo Gonzalez | Spain |
| 67 | Eddie Wang | Chinese Taipei |
| 68 | Katsuhiro Matsumoto | Japan |
| 69 | Szebasztian Szabo | Hungary |
| 70 | Maxime Grousset | France |
| 71 | Shaine Casas | USA |
| 72 | Max Litchfield | Great Britain |
| 73 | Bryce Mefford | USA |
| 74 | Zach Harting | USA |
| 75 | Blake Pieroni | USA |
| 76 | Bruno Fratus | Brazil |
| 77 | Florent Manaudou | France |
| 78 | Thomas Neill | Australia |
| 79 | Tamas Kenderesi | Hungary |
| 80 | Hunter Armstrong | USA |
| 81 | Radoslaw Kawecki | Poland |
| 82 | Coleman Stewart | USA |
| 83 | Emre Sakci | Turkey |
| 84 | Krzysztof Chmielewski | Poland |
| 85 | Thom de Boer | Netherlands |
| 86 | Trenton Julian | USA |
| 87 | Ippei Watanabe | Japan |
| 88 | Tom Shields | USA |
| 89 | Tomoe Hvas | Norway |
| 90 | Ryan Held | USA |
| 91 | Vladislav Grinev | Russia |
| 92 | James Guy | Great Britain |
| 93 | Takeshi Kawamoto | Japan |
| 94 | Mehdy Metella | France |
| 95 | Nicholas Santos | Brazil |
| 96 | Andrii Govorov | Ukraine |
| 97 | Matti Mattsson | Finland |
| 98 | Drew Kibler | USA |
| 99 | Michele Lamberti | Italy |
| 100 | Christian Diener | Germany |
How is Luca Urlando higher than Zach Apple? Just curious.
Curious how Carson Foster is higher on the list than David Popovici? Haven’t seen this one raised before
Now that I see that, I’m also a bit confused. Foster at the moment is only internationally competitive in the 400 IM, whereas David Popovici is 3 years younger, and is a medal threat in two events (100 & 200 FR) that much more competitive fields.
If we want to play the ‘what-if’ game and say Foster went a time that would’ve won gold in the 400 IM, fine. But the time to win was relatively uninspiring, and if we play the same game with Popovici, he’d be the bronze medalist in the 100 FR with a much more impressive time. Plus, if Scheffer doesn’t get the benefit of Hwang’s wake in the 200 FR to go a 0.4… Read more »
Chalmers is way too high- just had surgery, competes in one event, may not go to worlds….he is a great swimmer, but 2022 is not likely to be his year.
I disagree. I think with worlds cancelled now, comm games could be huge for him.
Finke and Hafnaoui seem too far apart.
I know Finke won a second gold, but if it‘s about the coming year, one has to keep in mind Hafnaoui‘s crazy improvement just in the past 12 months. Not only up until the Olympics but also considering his 1500 SCM performance at the end of the year.
And if you argue against Hafnaoui because of the rather „weak“ Olympic winning time, the same could be said for Finke.
Finke is American tho so that must count for something.
there is one person you forgot:
me (i am sigma and beat dressel once)
Can’t believe I’ve been left out.
After my 1.08 100 breast at a recent Masters meet a 56 is definitely on the cards by August.
Clearly!
Jacob Whittle will have a better year than Bobby Finke
Sonny trigg, go back to your YouTube channel. You‘re on the wrong site amigo.
Now that I see the list in full, here are my general takeaways from the most glaring issues:
Too low:
Milak
KK (only slightly)
Kamminga
Paltrinieri (others may think too high, but with no mono, he sweeps the distance events in Tokyo. Should be much better this year)
Hwang
Guy
Too high:
Peaty
Finke
Rapsys
Foster
Urlando
Morozov
Morozov is the worst 50 freestyler of the list but he is rated higher than all World/OG medallists except Dressel
I don’t know why Morozov is even on the list.
Yea, I don’t understand how he’s above Flo and Fratus. Morozov is a factor in only the 50 FR at this point, and I assume RUS will dump him from relay duties in the 400 FR (use Rylov instead, has been 47.0 on his split) and 400 MR. I can understand Proud being higher than those two, considering people have said he had a weight room injury after Euros, and he looked fantastic at ISL and SC Worlds.
Finke isn’t too high
He should not be ahead of Milak..
People said about Hafnaoui winning 400 on a weak time.. but 1500 was weak also..
And Milak grip over 200 is unbeatable now, but Finke 800/1500 PBs are still behind Wellbrock Paltrinieri and Romanchuck..
Finke over milak makes absolutely 0 sense
Yea, it’s essentially punishing Milak for having to race against the WR holder in the 100 FL while being only a few tenths behind and the second-fastest performer in history. For other events, like the 400 IM, they hold the weakness of the field against the winner, hence Chase Kalisz isn’t too high.
Now that I think of it, Hafnaoui might be a little high for someone who only swims one event at an elite level (so far), and his winning time was the slowest of any WCs/OGs since 2007, and was the slowest OGs winning time since 1996. But, he does have youth on his side, and coming to the US to train could be huge since I don’t know how great the resources of Swimming Tunisia are (Mellouli didn’t become an international medalist until he came to USC).
Would not put him over Milak and would be a tough call to put him over KK. The times he won with weren’t earth-shattering and he has 3 guys down his neck in both his events who have very recent PBs faster than his PBs.
Agreed with a few of these – Guy really stood out as being too low. Could basically flip him and Greenbank and it’d make more sense imo.
Yea, the James Guy rank made absolutely no sense to me. In the 2021 ranking, he was 41, and that was coming off a poor 2019 showing. Yet, he was nearly at his best form in 2021–throws down one of the fastest splits in the 4*200 field, became the 3rd-fastest 100 FL relay swimmer in history (behind only CD and the GOAT), and gave up a very possible bronze medal in the 100 FL to save for GB’s relays, but somehow drops 51 spots?? There wasn’t much more you could’ve asked him to do in Tokyo and he delivered big time. He has much more value as a swimmer than one of the four 400 IM-only swimmers in the top… Read more »
Yeah sure … Paltrinieri would have swept the distance events although he has been hopeless against Wellbrock in the 1500 free since 2018 …
Also: Did he also have mono this short course season?
The reality is that his time in the pool is over, guys at that age very very very rarely get faster. He should focus on the open water in the future.
Paltrinieri may win the 800 if he was healthy, but I don’t know about 1500. The only international 1500 title he’s won since 2017 Worlds is the one at 2019 short course European Championships, with the absence of Wellbrock. He lost by only a few tenths in 800 in Tokyo but was way behind in 1500. He failed to make the podium once again at last year’s short course Worlds.
I disagree. In late 2020, he went the second-fastest time EVER in the 1500, behind only Sun Yang’s London 2012 swim (so for the swimming purists out there, GP is the actual WR holder). He was faster at Italian trials in 2021 than he was at the Italian trials in 2016, and from trials to OGs in 2016 he dropped over 6 seconds. Had a respectable showing at Euros while being untapered (by his account) and clearly unshaved–just looked to be in great form for Tokyo. The medal he won in the 800 was just pure guts (I remember even Rowdy had to tip his hat to GP during his commentary), and the bronze he won in OW was largely… Read more »
Paltrinieri might be top 8