Anicka Raine Marie Delgado Kotek (born 13 June 2002) is an Ecuadorian swimmer. She competed in the women's 100 metre freestyle at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships. two-time Olympic medalist , multiple world champion, and multiple national record holder and champion. Her specialties are freestyle and butterfly sprints.

She is studying management at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles .

Sports career

Anika was born on June 13, 2002, in Shakopee , Minnesota , to a mixed Ecuadorian-American family. Her father, Felipe Delgado, is a former Ecuadorian swimmer and two-time Olympic medalist (1996 and 2000). Shortly after her birth, the family moved to Southern California , to the town of Laguna Hills in Orange County , where her father founded his own swimming club, where Anika began swimming lessons at the age of four.

She began competing at the age of 12, swimming at various junior meets across the United States. Although her mother was American, Anika chose to compete internationally for Ecuador , the country where her father Felipe is from. She made her international swimming debut in 2017 at the World Junior Championships in Indianapolis , where she swam several good races. The following year, at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, she finished in a high 5th place in the 50-meter butterfly final.

She achieved her first major career success at the South American Junior Championships in Santiago de Chile in 2019, where she managed to win 5 medals, including 3 gold (50 and 100 butterfly and 50 freestyle), 1 silver (100 freestyle) and 1 bronze (4×100 medley relay).

She made her World Championships debut in Gwangju, Korea in 2019 (41st place in the 100 freestyle and 34th in the 50 butterfly ). Just two weeks later, she swam at the Pan American Games in Lima , and then at the World Junior Championships in Budapest .

She continued her series of good results at the continental championships in Buenos Aires 2021 by winning 3 gold medals in the 50 and 100 butterfly races (she also swam new national records in both) and the 100 freestyle.

She managed to qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo , where she swam in the qualifying races in the 50 freestyle (30th place) and 100 freestyle (27th place).

Between the two Olympic cycles, she competed at the World Championships in Budapest 2022 and Fukuoka 2023 , and at the World Small Pool Championships in Melbourne 2022. She also swam at the Pan American Games in Santiago 2023 (two fifth places in the 100 freestyle and 100 butterfly races).

Thanks to a special invitation, she competed for the second time at the Olympic Games , this time in Paris in 2024. In Paris, she swam in the 50-meter freestyle heats . She competed in the seventh heat, swimming in lane 5, and with a time of 25.43 seconds, she took second place in her heat, or 26th place overall, out of 79 competitors.