Kromo, Toussaint Bust Out Speedy Swims While Teen Vanotterdijk Hits 58 100 Fly

2020 CORONA RACE: NETHERLANDS/BELGIUM

• Friday, July 10th
• Antwerp, Belgium
• 50m (LCM)
• *Hand-timed*

In addition to Arno Kamminga‘s fiery 58.4/2:08 breaststroke combo, of which you can read about in detail here, there were several other eye-catching performances that went down at the Corona Race in Antwerp. The competition was comprised of only hand-timed, unofficial time trials and consisted of Netherlands and Belgium.

Olympian Ranomi Kromowidjojo was in the water, taking on the women’s 50m free and 100m fly events. In the former, the 2012 Olympic double champion put up a solid 24.38 time, while in the latter she touched in 59.36.

23.85 is Kromo’s fastest 50m freestyle ever, a time she notched back in 2017 at that year’s World Championships. Most recently at the 2019 edition of the Championships in Gwangju, Kromo hit a time of 24.35 to place 6th in the event. With that in mind, her unofficial 24.38 from today is a positive sign of the Dutch record holder’s coming back to form from having been out of the water in the March/April timeframe.

Another record holder in Kira Toussaint was also in the water, with the former Tennessee Vol tackling the 50m and 100m backstroke. In previous unofficial time trials, Toussaint turned out times of 1:00.91 in May and 1:00.7 last month in the longer event. Today, she surpassed both of those marks, getting to the wall in a speedy 59.97.

Unofficially splitting 28.76/31.21, Toussaint’s time here from Antwerp falls less than a second away from her lifetime best and NR of 59.14 from last year’s World Cup. Toussaint’s 50m back here clocked in at 28.21.

Additional results from this hand-timed meet included Jesse Puts getting to the wall first in the men’s 50m free in a time of 22.51, while Louis Croenen hit a 100m fly time of 53.47.

Of note, Belgian teenager Roos Vanotterdijk clocked a statement-making 100m fly time of 58.83 to beat out Kromo. Splitting 27.89/30.94, Vanotterdijk’s time here unofficially crushes her previous lifetime best of 59.33 from the 2019 European Youth Olympic Festival. That sub-minute outing was enough to garner Vanotterdijk the silver medal in Baku behind winner Aleksandra Sabitova of Russia.

As such, although unofficial, Vanotterdijk’s outing here at just 16 years of age would rank the Belgian among the top 10 U.S. performers all-time for females 15-16, just for perspective.