For the past few years, Swimswam has published their top 100 prospects for the coming season as each new year rolls around. For the most part it’s a lot of conjecture, a chance to stimulate debate, and the rankings are a matter of opinion rather than objective fact.
That all said, it’s interesting to see where the US focussed site ranks GB’s swimmers on a global level and to see how that opinion has changed since the previous year’s list. Extracting the GB rankings also allows us to see whether the balance of power has shifted in the view of an external observer, so that’s what we’ve done below.
Men
No wholesale changes amongst the men, although Adam Peaty and Duncan Scott both drop out of the top 10 after injury and illness affected 2022 campaigns. That probably doesn’t really reflect their potential for 2023, but instead a measure of uncertainty. Perhaps more surprisingly Tom Dean drops out of the top 20, despite a highly successful 12 months. although possibly that’s a consequence of how competitive the men’s 200 freestyle has become and the potential for David Popovici to dominate that event.
Ben Proud was the big mover, rising 23 spots from the 2022 rankings after his stellar performances last year, while Lewis Burras, Matt Richards and Jacob Whittle all joined the list. Max Litchfield, still frozen out of international swimming, and James Guy drop out.
| 2023 | 2022 | ||
| Adam Peaty | 14 | 2 | ↓ 12 |
| Duncan Scott | 18 | 7 | ↓ 11 |
| Tom Dean | 22 | 14 | ↓ 8 |
| Ben Proud | 29 | 52 | ↑ 23 |
| Lewis Burras | 43 | – | – |
| Luke Greenbank | 57 | 37 | ↓ 20 |
| James Wilby | 59 | 64 | ↑ 5 |
| Matt Richards | 63 | – | – |
| Jacob Whittle | 80 | – | – |
| Max Litchfield | – | 72 | – |
| James Guy | – | 92 | – |
Women
Britain’s women are to be found lower down the pecking order than their male counterparts, reflecting the relative success that the teams have had in recent years. Freya Anderson sits at the top of the GB cohort, with a small climb leapfrogging her over Abbie Wood who drops 32 spots after a 12 month spell that didn’t wholly reflect the promise of 2021.
Anna Hopkin and Katie Shanahan tread water with small changes in position only, while Imogen Clark joins the list after an excellent year over 50m breaststroke, which shows how the world sees her quality even if the GB hierarchy hasn’t always agreed. The injury affected Kathleen Dawson drops out along with the now retired Molly Renshaw.
| 2023 | 2022 | ||
| Freya Anderson | 62 | 66 | ↑ 4 |
| Abbie Wood | 66 | 32 | ↓ 34 |
| Anna Hopkin | 75 | 72 | ↓ 3 |
| Imogen Clark | 88 | – | – |
| Katie Shanahan | 92 | 91 | ↓ 1 |
| Kathleen Dawson | – | 58 | – |
| Molly Renshaw | – | 70 | – |
These lists tell us little about what will happen when the world comes together again in Fukuoka for the world championships, but it is interesting that Swimswam feel GB was waned a little over the past 12 months. Some of that may not be entirely accurate, with an inevitable recency bias in cases where swimmers are coming back from breaks of one sort of anther. There remains promise here or course, and no doubt many not on this list who will perform well in 2023, but we’ll only really know what that means when trials roll around in April.