Ida Hulkko Breaks Finnish National Records in 50 and 100 LCM Breast

TAMPERE INVITATIONAL

• June 13, 2020
• Tampere, Finland
• Long course meters (LCM)
• Results

Despite the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, swim meets are still going on in some parts of the world. In Finland, at today’s Tampere Invitational, Ida Hulkko put together a lifetime best of 1:06.90 in the 100 LCM breaststroke to set a new national record. Only Finnish national and junior national team-ers are competing at this meet, along with some Tampere local athletes.

Hulkko’s previous best was a 1:07.42, done in fall of 2019 at the Budapest stop of the FINA World Cup series. She jumps ahead of Jenna Laukkanen‘s old Finnish record of 1:07.35, done in 2016 at the Rio Olympics. That 1:06.90 is also good for an Olympic ‘A’ cut, skirting past the standard of 1:07.07.

Later in the session, Hulkko dropped a 30.33 to slice two-tenths of a second off of her own NR of 30.53.

Hulkko swam for Florida State University for the 2018-19 NCAA season, her freshman debut culminating in a fifth-place finish in the 100 breast at the 2019 NCAA Championships. She took a gap year for the 2020 Olympics, originally scheduled for this summer, but has since decided she won’t be returning to the FSU program.

In order to give her 100 breast performance some context, we can compare it with the 2019-20 season rankings (though that season has been mostly cut short since late winter/early spring with the spread of the pandemic). That swim puts her at ninth in the world rankings.

A few other NR-holders put up solid times today in Tampere. Mimosa Jallow won two events, going 28.67 in the 50 back and 26.55 in the 50 free. She’s the NR-holder in both of those events at 24.90 and 27.42, respectively.

Matti Mattson, the NR-holder in the 100 and 200 breast, won the 100 breast today with a 1:01.51. He also claimed the 50 breast at 28.96.