Bjerg Becomes Denmark’s First-Ever Sub-1:00 Breaststroker (59.17)

2019 DANISH OPEN

• Friday, April 5th – Tuesday, April 9th
• Taastrup Swimming Center
• LCM
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• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• World Championships Selection Criteria
• Start List
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
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During the prelim session on day 4 of the 2019 Danish Open, Tobias Bjerg blew away his previous personal best and national record to clock a new standard of 59.17.

Entering this morning’s heats, Bjerg’s career-fastest sat at the 1:01.19 mark he produced at the 2018 European Championships, a time that checked in as the new Danish National Record. There in Glasgow, Bjerg split 28.69/32.50 to rank 22nd after prelims.

Flash forward to tonight at the Taastrup Swimming Center, and Bjerg unleashed the swim of his life, throwing down splits of 27.78/31.39 to clock 59.17 and become the first Danish man ever to go under the minute mark, or 1:01 mark for that matter, and take gold. It’s simply hard to wrap one’s head around the fact that Bjerg hacked 2 seconds off of his previous lifetime best in a 100 meter distance race, in just one swim.

59.95 is what was needed to qualify for the Danish roster for the World Championships this summer and Bjerg’s time, although done in heats, should be enough to qualify him.

Bjerg put up a big swim when it counted and he now ranks 3rd in the world because of it.