Swimmers located around the world are slowly able to return to pools following measured processes and protocols in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Those that can get wet once again aren’t wasting any time establishing baseline times to gauge where their fitness and form are at as they restart their Olympic journeys in earnest.
We already gave you the highlights of an unofficial Chinese national team meet, including a 52.37 100m back stunner from national record holder and reigning world champion Xu Jiayu.
But, several standouts on the Dutch squad took to the pool as well, as Arno Kamminga, Kira Toussaint, and more threw down some time trials at the Dutch National Training Center in Amsterdam to get their new season started.
Kamminga said of his ability to begin anew, “Blessed to be back in the pool. Solid race after a tough week.” His swimming personified this sentiment as the 24-year-old two-time European Short Course champion at Glasgow put up a solid 100m breast time of 59.24 today.
Per his Instagram post below, Kamminga split 27.86/31.38 en route to his first sub-minute 100m breast of the post-coronavirus lockdown. That’s a solid start for the man who was on an absolute tear the past year, dropping the Dutch national record in the event down to a massive 58.43, becoming the world’s 3rd fastest performer all-time in the process.
Teammate and fellow national record holder Toussaint did damage in the 100m back today, posting a time of 1:00.91 unofficially to get her season underway.
The former Tennesse Vol-turned multi-European Short Course Champion said of her swim today, “Happy to be back in the water and to be able to race again. 1:00.91 (29.57 – 31.34) means there is lots of work to do in the upcoming months!
“Competing is what I love most about swimming, so I missed it really bad. The feeling of getting up knowing you have a race coming up. Getting behind the block to do the last preparations, it just felt really good again.”
Toussaint’s time today is well over her lifetime best and national record of 59.14 from November of 2019, but was a solid swim in a time when the 25-year-old was out of the water and turned to her own in-home yoga and bodyweight training regimen.
We are checking on additional NTC-Amsterdam swimmers’ results, including that potentially from Kenzo Simons and Jesse Puts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAPgO5yg0Js/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAPvzlyH0hg/
Man that dude is photogenic AF
I feel like a lot of Dutch swimmers are. Korstanje is as well
Kamminga has such a nice stroke. It is nice to see that he is back in the water and as everyone is saying… he is still on fire! Really hoping he keeps up the momentum
Kenzo Simons 22.6 and Jesse Puts 22.8
wowowowowowo
I love toussaint’s general recklessness regarding 15m
More like disregard.
It looked like she was well past 15 on the start
LETS GOOO!!!
Cool! He still seems to be on fire. This is really impressive. Here we go again…(kind of a restart to the season)
Quarantine is one super long taper. I choose to think of it that way anyway to keep my sanity