Kasia Wasick Closes Out Rotterdam Qualification Meet With 24.18 50 Free Scorcher

2023 ROTTERDAM QUALIFICATION MEET

• Thursday, November 30th – Sunday, December 3rd
• Zwemcentrum Rotterdam, the Netherlands
• LCM (50m)
• 2024 World Championships and 2024 Olympic qualifying competition
• Entries
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
• Live Results
• Livestream

The 2023 Rotterdam Qualification Meet wrapped up from the Netherlands after a 4-day display of swimming prowess on both the men’s and women’s sides.

Tonight the women’s 50m fly saw 27-year-old Maaike de Waard of the Netherlands get to the wall first in a time of 25.74. That ranked as the only time of the field under the 26-barrier in the final.

Tesse Giele snagged silver in 26.38 and Canadian Rebecca Smith clocked 26.93 as the bronze medalist.

De Waard’s outing fell just .12 outside of the 25.62 she put up for bronze at last year’s European Championships.

Sean Niewold notched the victory in the men’s 50m fly, registering an outing of 23.43. That gave him the edge over Thomas Verhoeven who scored silver in 23.51 while Albin Loevgren also landed on the podium in 23.98.

National record holder Tes Schouten was too quick to catch in the women’s 100m breast, posting a result of 1:06.31 as the top performer. That cleared the World Aquatics Olympic Qualification Time of 1:06.79 needed to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Her fastest time ever sits at the 1:05.71 she produced in April at the Eindhoven Qualification Meet and her time this evening was just .02 shy of her season-best put up at the Budapest stop of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup Series.

Behind Schouten this evening was British breaststroker Angharad Evans who continued her breakout competition here in Rotterdam.

The University of Stirling athlete clocked a time of 1:07.27 to come away with the silver. Her time this evening hacked another half a second off of her newly-minted personal best of 1:07.77 notched in the heats.

Entering this competition, Evans’ lifetime best sat at the 1:08.05 turned in at this year’s British Swimming Championships. She’s now the 10th-best British performer in history in the women’s 100m breast event.

Evans already earned silver at this meet in the 200m breaststroke here, again hitting a big-time personal best.

She scorched a time of 2:26.84, demolishing her previous PB of 2:33.40 collected during the 200 Golden Tour. Evans rocketed up the British rankings from 97th to now 17th all-time in the 2breast.

Four men went sub-1:00 in the 100m breast final, led by two-time Olympic silver medalist Arno Kamminga.

After logging a morning swim of 59.30 to land lane 4 out of the heats, Kamminga shaved off a tad more time to ultimately claim gold in 59.26.

Teammate and former Texas Longhorn Caspar Corbeau was next in line with 59.43 and Germany’s Lucas Matzerath bagged bronze in 59.52. Koen de Groot of the host nation was 4th in 59.93, his first-ever outing under the 1:00 threshold.

Both Kamminga and Corbeau successfully qualified for Paris with their performances.

Polish Olympian Kasia Wasick put on a dominant display of speed en route to earning the women’s 50m freestyle victory.

The 31-year-old ace fired off a winning effort of 24.18 to come within .07 of her Polish standard of 24.11 posted at the 2022 World Championships.

Wasick already ranked #3 in the world on the season, courtesy of the 24.21 registered at the Polish Winter Championships last month.

Runner-up Neza Klancar produced a new Slovenian national record en route to silver. Klancar got to the wall in 24.70, slicing .06 she scored at this year’s U23 Championships.

Dutch Olympian Marrit Steenbergen was tonight’s bronze medalist in 24.82, following up on her 100m free and 200m IM double victories from last night.

Sweden’s Victor Johansson put up the fastest men’s 800m freestyle out of the final, registering 7:50.14 to get to the wall ahead of the pack.

His performance checks in as the 3rd-best of his career, one which boasts a PB of 7:49.14 from the 2020 Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old Swede would have ranked 4th in the world this season; however, Irishman Daniel Wiffen established a much quicker mark during yesterday’s heats.

The World Championships finalist fired off a head-turning 7:45.61 to land lane 4, although he would wind up absent from the final.

Wiffen’s effort represented the 6th-fastest time of his career and now ranks the Loughborough-trained star #1 in the world.

Additional Notes

• The women’s 4o0m free saw Imani de Jong of the host nation turn in a time of 4:14.42.
• Visiting British swimmer Kieran Bird of Bath took the men’s 400m free in a result of 3:47.96, the sole competitor of the field under 3:52.
• Norwegian national record holder Nicholas Lia was the sole swimmer of the men’s 50m free to get under the 22-second barrier. He hit a time of 21.99, just .01 slower than the morning, to beat Kenzo Simons of the host nation and Yuri Kisil of Canada. Simons settled for silver in 22.04 and Kisil rounded out the podium in 22.14.
• The women’s 800m free saw Spaniard Angela Martinez Guillen add another victory to her Rotterdam resume. She grabbed gold in 8:38.81, although that was ell off her PB of 8:29.08 from March in her native country.