Women's European Swimmer of the Year

Top 3 Finishers
Inge de Bruijn, NED
Yana Klochkova, UKR
Camelia Potec, ROM

Consider for a moment that the world was a perfect place, and Chinese swimmers never used performance-enhancing drugs. If that were the case, the swimming world might be honoring Holland's Inge de Bruijn as the fastest female swimmer in the world. Instead of setting a European record in the 50 meter free at the European Championships with her 24.84, she might have been crowned the world record holder. And people would be touting her as the fastest sprinter ever with seven of the world's top nine performances! But, alas, we do not live in a perfect world. What can be said, however, is that de Bruijn, 26, is the fastest non-Chinese swimmer ever in the 50 free, ranking first in the world this year and fourth all-time. In 1999, "Inky" clocked under 25 seconds on four different occasions. Only five swimmers (de Bruijn, Amy Van Dyken and three from China) have ever gone under 25. In addition to her 50 free prowess, de Bruijn earned Swimming World's female European Swimmer of the Year honors by also ranking second in the world in the 100 free (54.92), 50 fly (26.53, a world record which was later bettered by Sweden's Anna-Katrin Kammerling) and 100 fly (58.49). Her 100 fly is a European record and is the sixth fastest performance all-time.