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Arno Kamminga lowered his national 100m breaststroke record to 58.42 at the Netherlands Team Time Trials to remain the fourth-fastest man in history and third in the world this year.
The three-time European short-course champion split 27.31/31.11 in Eindhoven with a morning swim that augurs well for Tokyo with its early finals.
Kamminga shaved 0.01 off his previous best of 58.43 from the Antwerp Diamond Race in March 2020, days before the Olympics were postponed in the wake of the coronavirus.
He now owns the 32 fastest times by a Dutch swimmer and Friday was his 11th time inside 59secs since his first journey through the barrier in November 2019.
Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
The 25-year-old was catapulted to third all-time with the Antwerp swim behind only Adam Peaty (56.88) and Ilya Shymanovich (58.29).
Nicolo Martinenghi also announced himself as another looking to break the 58-second barrier when he displaced Kamminga with a time of 58.37 at the Italian Championships in Riccione at the start of April.
Peaty tops this year’s rankings in 57.39 – on a day where he twice went 57 at the British trials in London – ahead of Martinenghi and Kamminga, who went 58.6 on two occasions at the Eindhoven Qualification Meet earlier this month.
Kamminga became the fourth man to gain entry to the 2:06 club over 200m when he went 2:06.85 at the 2020 Rotterdam Qualification Meet in December last year.
Shoma Sato was the fifth swimmer inside 2:07 at the Kitajima Cup in January and now stands second all-time behind Anton Chupkov’s world record of 2:06.12 after going 2:06.40 at the Japanese Olympic trials.
Kira Toussaint: Photo Courtesy: MIKE LEWIS / ISL
Other results of note saw Kira Toussaint win the 50/100 backstroke double, going 27.81 over the shorter race weeks after twice lowering the European record to 27.10.
Toussaint, who trains at the National Centre Amsterdam, returned to go 59.73 over 100.
Femke Heemskerk claimed the second 50 free slot on the Netherlands team for Tokyo following a swim-off against Valerie van Roon in Eindhoven.
On Friday she took the 50 free in 24.90.
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