A final split of 20.15 from Thom de Boer propelled the Netherlands to a world record of 1:36.18 in the mixed 4×50 medley relay at the European Short-Course Championships in Kazan, Russia.
The Dutch were sixth going into the freestyle and were on course for bronze until the final four metres only for De Boer to guide them to go gold in a new global standard.
They sliced 0.04 from the previous record of 1:36.22 set by Russia at the last continental edition in Glasgow in 2019.
Splits:
Toussaint: 25.99
Kamminga: 25.54
De Waard: 24.50
De Boer: 20.15
Italy were second in 1:36.39, one place and 0.03 ahead of Russia who clocked 1:36.42.
Also of note was Ilya Shymanovich’s breaststroke split of 24.72 as Belarus came fifth.
De Boer said:
“When I dove in, I knew I could close the gap because the 50m free is my event.
“I was very fast and I did a massive sprint at the end. At first, I did not realise we had the world record.
“We were just happy to win. Really, we are all flabbergasted! I’ve not experienced this feeling very often.”
It was Toussaint’s fourth gold of the meet following her clean sweep of the breaststroke events.
She said:
“I love swimming the relay! Bronze was our goal here, I started this relay racing next to Kliment Kolesnikov who is one of the best backstrokers in the world, that was crazy. But it was so much fun!
“With this relay, each country had different orders so it was hard to see who was in front.
“But Thom’s split in the last 50m is absolutely insane. We were just celebrating that we won and all of a sudden that yellow block popped up next to our time on the board… We were absolutely shocked, it’s truly been an incredible week here!”
De Waard added:
“I didn’t expect the relay to be this good. We knew we had a chance for the medal but getting a gold and a world record, is… Wow! This a great way to end this competition.”
Kamminga, who won 200 breaststroke silver and 100 bronze, said:
“Wow, this came as a surprise. We knew Russia and Italy were very strong so we were just hoping for a medal, the gold is unreal.
“We knew we had one last chance so we gave it all. We are all very tired but wanted to finish with a bang. We are over the moon.”