Danish sprinter Jeanette Ottesen has tied her own National Record with a 24.54 in the 50 long course meter freestyle at the Eastern Danish Championships in East Kilbride today. That matches the time that the 27-year old Ottesen swam in the semifinal of the 2013 World Championships last summer, where she ultimately was slower and in 5th place in the final.
Ottesen began development of a new freestyle stroke shortly after the 2012 Olympics, training under the new National Team coach in Denmark Shannon Rollason. So far, as she continues to get better, it appears as though that stroke is settling in well given that she’s going best times in late February already at 27 years old.
19-year old Pernille Blume took 2nd in that race in 25.63, and Julie Kepp Jensen, who is only 13 years old, was 3rd in an impressive 25.79.
Gray also won the 50 fly in 25.62, which breaks her own Danish Record of 25.69 set in 2010. She was only three-tenths behind the winner of the men’s 50 fly at this meet.
Jensen’s second win came in the 50 backstroke, where she was a 29.70 – hot on the tails of the great Dane Mie Nielsen’s Junior Record, with a few years still to chase it down.
Among other winners on the first day of this five day meet was Pal Joensen, who took the 400 free in 3:54.64, beating Anton Ipsen‘s 3:58.16.
Rikke Moeller Pedersen won the women’s 50 breaststroke in 31.20, beating out Cecile Holten who at 17 was a 32.44.
Off Topic… Braden, there is currently a meet in Berlin (ISM) and it has seen some world leads from Koch, O’Connor and Peaty.
Good stuff from Jeanette considering she was totally unrested 🙂
Danish Open next month is the big qualifying opportunity for Danes for the European champs, so this meet and the corresponding west regional champs are a good marker of where they are at, so far things look good.
Are you sure that Jeanette was “totally unrested”? 😆
24.54 totally unrested! 🙄
If you’re right, she will crush the world record very quickly. 🙂
I also notice the impressive marks by 13-year-old Julie Kepp Jensen.
It looks like Denmark continues to produce at least one female phenom per year! 🙂
Great for your country.
And if that young lady continues to improve quickly in the next 2 years, she could be on the anchor leg of a fantastic Danish medley relay in Rio with Mie Nielsen on backstroke, RMP on breaststroke and Jeanette Ottesen on fly.
Well RMP said on Friday morning the meet was going to be hard since she had to swim 9 races and had already swum 55km in training this week, so I would assume that goes for all the NTC swimmers. I would be very surprised if any of our elite level swimmers had tapered for a regional championships.
And yes, things look bright for our medley relay if we can just keep 4 swimmers healthy at the same time. After having to pull out from Barcelona due to Mie’s injury, I can’t wait to see what they can do in Berlin.