Paris Olympics 2024: First Woman to Break Michael Phelps’ Record, Sarah Sjöström Wins Another Award

The swimming world has sung praises of the likes of Sarah Sjöström and is continuing to do so. The 30-year-old who rose to fame with the European Aquatic Championships at the age of 14, has attained a position beside the turquoise great Michael Phelps. The sprint freestyle and butterfly events specialist has 23 individual long-course World Championships medals in her purse. The first woman to bring gold for Sweden in the Olympics, Sjöström has a resume hard to match up to.

At the 2019 FINA World Aquatic Championships, the Salem native won five individual medals as the most woman to achieve that feat. In 2022, another great news surfaced when she became the first European swimmer to earn 10 WC golds individually. She boasts of another feat, which was going strong until a miss in 2022. But she picked up pace again.

Sarah Sjöström received the highly anticipated honor

Euro Aquatics took to its Instagram handle to post, “Sarah Sjostrom is 𝒉𝒆𝒓. Sjostrom has dominated the Best Female Swimmer category at the #EuropeanAquaticsAwards, and she added another win to her tally for 2023!” Her track record says that she bagged three consecutive European Aquatics Awards in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Her list doesn’t have 2020, which might be because of the pandemic. In 2021, she repeated her feat, but in, 2022 the title slipped out of her hands and went to Ruta Meilutyte.

However, the latest photo of her with the European Awards stamp at the bottom was a sigh of relief. The current WR holder in the long-course 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 50m freestyle, and 50m butterfly, Sjöström held the short-course records as well. But her biggest dream fulfillment happened in 2023 when she out-swam Michael Phelps’ record medals.

Sjöström besting swimming great Michael Phelps

At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, the 30-year-old broke her own 50m freestyle record. Phelps, who stands with 20 individual medals at the World Aquatics Championships, saw his record being smashed like nothing. The 50m freestyle and 50m butterfly medals placed her on top. After her feat, she said, “I’m super happy with that. It was very busy yesterday, with the world record and the gold medal”. 

The first swimmer to win 6 same-event golds at the Worlds cemented her name in the annals of swimming history. Just some days away from the 2024 Paris Olympics and the world is ready to marvel at the history maker once again. But there are more women on the rise as well.

READ MORE: Sarah Sjostrom Reveals Reason Why Doha World Championships Is Her Booster for Paris Olympics