Benedetta Pilato

Benedetta Pilato (born 28 January 2005) is an Italian swimmer. She is the European champion in the 50 metre breaststroke in 2021 and the 100 metre breaststroke in 2022 as well as the silver medalist in the 50 metre breaststroke in 2022. In 2021, she won a silver medal in the 50 metre breaststroke at the 2021 World Short Course Championships. She is the world champion in the 100 metre breaststroke and the silver medal in the 50 metre breaststroke at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships.

On 3 July, at the 2019 European Junior Swimming Championships held in Kazan, Russia, Pilato won the gold medal in the 50 metre breaststroke with a Championships record time of 30.16 seconds, finishing over one full second ahead of silver medalist Kotryna Teterevkova of Lithuania and Anastasia Makarova of Russia. Two days later, she won a silver medal in the 4×100 metre medley relay, contributing a split of 1:07.70 for the breaststroke leg of the relay to the final time of 4:05.66. In the final of the 4×100 metre mixed medley relay the next day, she helped achieve a fifth-place finish in 3:55.49, splitting a 1:10.15 for the breaststroke leg of the relay. For her fourth and final event, on 7 July, she placed fifth in the 100 metre breaststroke with a time of 1:08.22.

Pilato competed in the women's 50 metre breaststroke at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships, winning the silver medal, at the age of 14.

On 27 July 2019, at the beginning of the senior national team, at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, she entered the final of the 50 breaststroke with the third best time (30.17), after setting the new Italian record and winning her heat in 29.98, beating her previous record set at the Settecolli Trophy (30.13). The next day, she placed second in the final with a time of 30.00 seconds, finishing 0.16 seconds behind gold medalist Lilly King of the United States and 0.15 seconds ahead of bronze medalist Yuliya Yefimova of Russia.

The month following the senior World Championships, Pilato competed at the 2019 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships, held in Budapest, Hungary, where she won the world junior title and gold medal in the 50 metre breaststroke with a time of 30.60 seconds, finishing over three-tenths of a second ahead of silver medalist Kayla van der Merwe of Great Britain and bronze medalist Kaitlyn Dobler of the United States. She also placed sixth in the 100 metre breaststroke with a time of 1:08.21 and fourth in the 4×100 metre medley relay with a final time of 4:05.29.

In December, at the 2019 European Short Course Swimming Championships held in Glasgow, Scotland, Pilato won the gold medal in the 50 metre breaststroke in a world junior record time of 29.32 seconds, after setting world junior records in the preliminaries heats, at 29.62 seconds, and the semifinals, at 29.48 seconds. She also won a silver medal as part of the 4×100 metre medley relay, splitting a 29.18 for the breaststroke leg of the relay in the final, and placed thirteenth in the preliminaries of the 100 metre breaststroke with a 1:06.07, where she did not advance to the semifinals as she was not one of the two fastest swimmers representing Italy.

In December 2020, at 15 years of age, Pilato set a world junior record in the long course 50 metre breaststroke at the 2020 Italian Winter National Swimming Championships, in Riccione, with a time of 29.61 seconds. The following month, she was the recipient of SwimSwam's World Junior Female Swimmer of the Year award for the year 2020.

In April 2021, at the Italian National Swimming Championships, Pilato achieved a spot on the 2020 Olympic Team for Italy in the 100 metre breaststroke.