Dutch Ace Thom de Boer Tunes Up With 21.58 50 Free National Record

2021 AMSTERDAM SWIM MEET

• Friday, July 2nd – Saturday, July 3rd
• Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• LCM (50m)
• Results

Fewer than 20 days out from the start of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Dutch speedster Thom de Boer fired off a new national record in the men’s 50m freestyle.

Competing at the 2021 Amsterdam Meet in his native Netherlands, the 29-year-old punched an impressive outing of 21.58 to take the top prize at the meet. That beat the next closest swimmer Jesse Puts by half a second, with Puts clocking 22.08 for runner-up.

Entering this meet de Boer’s lifetime best was represented by the Dutch national standard of 21.62, a time he produced at the Monte Carlo stop of this year’s Mare Nostrum tour. As such, with Tokyo on the horizon, de Boer found a way to slice .04 off his PB to maintain his spot on the Olympic final contender list.

His improvement also moves him up a couple of notches in the season world rankings, with de Boer hopping over Finnish swimmer Ari-Pekka Liukkonen and Greek ace Kristian Gkolomeev to check in as #5 in the world this season.