FINA WORLD CUP SERIES – BERLIN
- Friday, October 11th – Sunday, October 13th
- Schwimm- und Sprunghalle im Europasportpark (SSE), Berlin
- LCM
- Results
25-year-old Kira Toussaint of the Netherlands continued her assault on her own Dutch national records in the sprint backstroke events while competing at the latest FINA World Cup Series stop in Berlin, Germany.
On day 1, Toussaint, knocked down her own previous 50m back PB of 27.69 to a new low of 27.49, checking in with a new Dutch national standard en route to gold.
The following day, Toussaint kept up her furious pace, scorching a new lifetime best mark of 59.46 in the 100m back to take gold and drop her previous Dutch NR down .10 from the 59.56 set just last week in Budapest.
In her final event, the 200m back, which she swims rather infrequentcly, Toussaint’s bronze medal-worthy outing took on an even greater significance.
Toussaint’s time of 2:11.79 established a new Toussaint family record in the event, with her mother, Jolanda de Rover seeing her time of 2:12.38 logged for gold at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles get overtaken by her daughter.
Toussaint told SwimSwam today, “I called my mother right after and she said she was really happy and I told her the ball is in her corner now.
“I tried so many times to beat 2:12, but also I didn’t do it seriously for a couple of years.”
Toussaint’s 200m back personal best heading into Berlin was the 2:13.02 she notched in Eindhoven 7 years ago. She most recently tried the event on for size at The Hague this past April where she touched in 2:16.65.
As for what was different this time around that helped her succeed in dipping under her mom’s mark, Toussaint said, “I knew I was in good shape. I swam my fastest 2nd 50 in the 100 (30.3) a couple of times so I hoped I could hold on for a 200. I mean, internationally, 2:11 isn’t very fast, but for me, personally, it’s a big step.”
What a difference a year makes, as Toussaint told us she “hadn’t trained as well because of all the stuff going on, but this year I started the season off well with a 3-week training camp.”
Toussaint had a tumultuous 2018/early 2019 battling a false positive test for which FINA official withdrew its case.
She had been on a voluntary suspension after having tested positive for Tulobuterol after a November 2nd doping test at the Beijing stop of the FINA World Cup Series. Per Toussaint at the time, FINA’s letter to the athlete stated that a reading of 0.000000001 grams was found in the test.
However, after re-testing of the samples at the same Beijing laboratory, the earlier results of tulobuterol in these samples were indeed incorrect.
Mom’s not getting that one back, but I wonder if she has set any remarkable masters marks to keep her daughter motivated.
The Phelps family records are gonna be especially hard to beat