There Are 24 ‘Triple Crowns’ Still In Play for 2026 Swimming World Cup

World Aquatics World Cup #2 – Tashkent

After 2 stops of the 2026 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup Series, there are 24 potential Triple Crowns for athletes who won the same event in all three stops.

Swimmers can win $10,000 if they sweep an event across all three stops of the 2026 Swimming World Cup. If they win that same event again at the World Short Course Championships in December in Beijing, they receive an additional $15,000 in prize money.

There were 23 Triple Crowns won at last year’s series. Only 3 swimmers were busted in the final stop. That means that in spite of a very thin field at this year’s series, there are actually fewer triple crown opportunities going into the last meet.

Part of that is due to the lack of versatile dominant forces that were present at last year’s meet like Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh, Regan Smith, and Hubert Kos. While there are very good swimmers at the top of many events this year, there aren’t as many versatile swimmers as the list above where the same swimmer is winning three crowns.

The exception is Dutch swimmer Marrit Steenbergen, who has four triple crown chances headed into the final stop in Astana, Kazakhstan next week. It is rare for a swimmer to even take on four events at every stop, given that there is no ‘I won an event once’ prize and only your best three swims count toward the overall standings.

If she manages to win the 100 free, 50 back, 100 back, and 100 IM, though, the effort could pay off.