The Hague: Heemskerk Continues Hot Streak, De Waard Hits Meet Record

2019 SWIM CUP – THE HAGUE

• Thursday, April 4th – Sunday, April 7th
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Day of The Swim Cup – The Hague brought additional qualification times for this summer’s World Championshps. Dutch athletes will have another opportunity to qualify at next week’s Swim Cup – Eindhoven, but we’ve seen some impressive results already through just day 2 here.

Maaike de Waard broke the meet reocrd in the women’s 50m back in last night’s heats and then lowered it even further this morning to take gold in the event. Last night the 22-year-old Short Course European Championships medalist broke through with a speedy 27.90 for a new meet standard. That time also cleared the 28.05 QT for Gwangju.

This morning, de Waard shaved another .05 off of her time to ultimately hit the wall in 27.85. That took the meet title, as well as added her name to the roster for this summer’s World Championships.

Joining her is Kira Toussaint, who already qualified in the 100m back and now adds this race to her line-up. Toussaint finished in 28.02 after hitting a quicker 27.98 in last night’s heats. Her PB sits at the 27.92 clocked at the European Championships in the semi-finals there.

Of note, Ranomi Kromowidjojo participated in last night’s 50m back heats, collecting a new personal best of 28.45. That shaved .04 off of her 28.49 produced at the World Cup in Doha last year.

Timeless 31-year-old Femke Heemskerk continues to impress, proving again that age is just a number. The Olympic medalist fired off a speedy 53.72 in last night’s heats of the women’s 100m free, but found a way to hack .2 off of that outing to produce an even faster meet record time of 53.52 this morning.

Splitting 26.09/27.43, Heemskerk’s 53.52 time easily cleared the 54.15 QT for Gwangju and also keeps her at the #6 slot in the world rankings, but overtaking her previous season-best of 53.58 from Marseille.

Kromo touched in 54.13 for silver this morning, also making it under the 54.15 QT for Gwangju, while Maud van der Meer fell just shy of qualification with her bronze medal-garnering time of 55.30.

Kromo stated post-race that, “I swam my own race and it went a lot better than yesterday in the heats. There was more length in my stroke.”

The men’s 400m IM saw Arjan Knipping clock a new meet record last night with his top-seeded swim of 4:16.78, a mark within striking distance of the 4:15.04 QT. However, Knipping couldn’t replicate or lower that outing, producing a slower 4:18.56 to still top the podium, but miss World Championships qualification, at least for now.

The men’s 100m free was slightly disappointing, with no racer dipping under the 49 second threshold. Kyle Stolk led the way with a time of 49.20, while Stan Pijnenburg picked up silver in 49.40. Young Nyls Korstanje, who was just named ACC’s Freshman of the Year for his performances at NC State in the NCAA, rounded out the top 3 tonight in 49.61.

However, a time of 48.51 was needed to make the grade for Worlds individually, so we’ll see if any of the swimmers can make some magic happen next weekend in Eindhoven.

In the men’s 100m breast, national record holder Arno Kamminga came just short of Gwangju qualifying, hitting the wall in 59.90 when a 59.79 was needed. Tonight was Kamminga’s 2nd sub-minute outing of the meet, as he already notched 59.99 in last night’s heats.

The next closest finisher in the men’s 100m breast was well over a second behind, with Maximilian Pilger taking silver in 1:01.13.

Tes Schouten produced a promising 100m breast prelim for the women last night, clocking 1:07.68. That was within half a second of the 1:07.33 Dutch QT for GWangju.

This morning in the final, however, teenager fell to 1:08.38, still reaping gold, but falling short of the Worlds roster. Schouten dropped out of last year’s Youth Olympic Games due to injury, so perhaps the teen is still on the mend and we’ll see something more from her as time goes on.

Additional Winners:

• Notching a new Meet Record, German swimmer Poul Zellmann snagged the gold in the men’s 400m free in 3:51.10.
• Marij van der Mast took gold in the 400m free for the women in 4:20.31, but needed a much quicker 4:07.52 to book a ticket to Worlds.
• The men’s 50m back saw its top 3 finishers separated by just .01 each. Alexander Bauch led the charge in 26.05, with Kenzo Simons and Marvin Dahler hitting the wall a fingernail later with times of 26.06 and 26.07, respectively. The men needed 25.10 to make it onto the World Championships roster, however.
• The women’s 400m IM saw Lotte Hosper lower the meet record twice, with the swimmer clocking 4:55.41 in last night’s heats followed by 4:53.56 this morning.
• Maarten Brzoskowski fell short of the QT of 1:56.45 needed for Worlds with his 1:59.72 outing in the men’s 200m fly tonight. His time marked the only sub-2:00 time of the field.
• The women’s 200m fly is also without an individual qualifiers thus far, as winner Marie Brockhaus‘ time of 2:15.28 was more than 6 seconds outside the 2:09.10 needed for Gwangju.