Arno Kamminga is a competitive swimmer who represents the Netherlands internationally. He is known for swimming breaststroke, and has multiple short course European medals in this discipline.
International Competition
2017 World Championships (Budapest, Hungary)
At his first long course world championships, Kamminga swam the 50 breast, where he wound up in a 3-way tie for 16th (27.39) out of the prelims, requiring a swim-off. He placed 3rd overall in the swim-off (27.43), rendering him out of the semi-finals.
2019 World Championships (Gwangju, South Korea)
In Gwangju, Kamminga swam the 100/200 breast. In the 100, he advanced to the semi-finals, and placed 13th overall (59.49). In the 200, he again advanced to semi-finals, breaking the Dutch record in the process, and placed 10th overall with a 2:08.48.
2019 Short Course European Championships (Glasgow, United Kingdom)
In Glasgow, Kamminga came in having broken the Dutch breaststroke records several times the previous fall, and didn’t stop there. He won medals in all 3 breaststroke events, breaking the Dutch record in all 3 events as well. This included Gold in the 100 and 200 as well as bronze in the 50, and a silver in the 4×50 mixed medley relay.
Dutch Record Seige
In 2019-2020, Kamminga rose to prominence by breaking the Dutch breaststroke records in both short course and long course seemingly every time he jumped in the competition pool. From the world championships in July 2019 all the way to the FINA Champions Series in January 2020, Kamminga broke Dutch breaststroke records over 10 times. This included:
- 200 LCM Breast – July 2019 – World Champs: 2:08.48
- 100 LCM Breast – October 2019 – World Cup: 59.05
- 50 LCM Breast – October 2019 – World Cup: 27.00
- 200 LCM Breast – October 2019 – World Cup: 2:07.96
- 100 SCM Breast – October 2019 – Matrinez Cup: 56.20
- 100 LCM Breast – November 2019 – World Cup: 58.98
- 50 SCM Breast (3x in one day) – December 2019 – Euro Short Course Champs: 25.84
- 200 SCM Breast (2x in one day) – December 2019 – Euro Short Course Champs: 2:02.36
- 100 SCM Breast – December 2019 – Euro Short Course Champs: 56.06
- 100 LCM Breast – December 2019 – Swim Cup Amsterdam: 58.65
- 100 LCM Breast – January 2020 – FINA Champions Series: 58.61
2021 European Championships (Budapest, Hungary)
Kamminga earned his first European champ medals in Budapest, taking silver in the 100 (58.10) and 200 breast (2:07.35) and the 400 mixed medley relay, splitting 58.37.
2020 Olympic Games
After going a personal best in prelims (57.8) and making it easily through semi-finals, Kamminga backed up his fast swimming up to this point, touching in the final at 58.00 to finish 2nd behind defending champion Adam Peaty, earning his first-ever Olympic medal with silver.
Kamminga was back in the 200, again taking silver in an extremely close race. Kamminga was out fast, leading the field for most of the race and only getting passed by Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook down the stretch, touching for 2nd in 2:07.01.
2022 World Championships
Kamminga started his world champs off in a similar fashion as he did in Tokyo after winning silver in the 100 breast final on day 2 (58.62). This marked the dutchman’s first LCM world medal.
2023 World Aquatics Championships (Fukuoka, Japan)
Kamminga was solid in the 100 breast prelims with a 58.71 for 2nd behind Qin Haiyang. The time beat out his season best of 58.90. He was a bit off that night in semis with a 59.08 for 5th into the final. Kamminga seemed to be in a bit of a hole for a medal, back in 5th at the 50 but he used a strong back 50 to pull even with Nic Fink and Nicolo Martinenghi down to the touch and tie both of them for silver behind Qin Haiyang’s 57.69 which supplanted Kamminga as #2 all-time. The trio touched in 58.72.
