World Swimming ChampionshipsMarrit Steenbergen finished tenth in the 200-meter individual medley at the World Swimming Championships on the long course in Budapest on Saturday. She was especially delighted with the big personal best she swam. ,,One and a half seconds off, I really didn’t expect that.”
Steenbergen clocked 2.10.60 minutes in the morning, followed by 2.11.20 in the evening, resulting in tenth place. “Very good times. Who would have expected that my first semi-final would be individual on the ‘two substitution’? I don’t, but really fat! Only since this year have I started to swim more in the medley, then you can see that I immediately improve my PR by three seconds this year. It really does have potential,” says Steenbergen.
The 22-year-old Frisian moved to Eindhoven when she was 17 for her sport. After difficult years lately, the achievements are finally starting to come. She is still swimming the 200 and 100 meter freestyle in the Hungarian capital this week. “And I’m really looking forward to that after the relay.”
Relay women seventh
Steenbergen opened in a fast 53.51 seconds, breaking her 2015 PR. With Tessa Giele, Kim Busch and Valerie van Roon she eventually finished seventh in the 4×100 meter freestyle relay. The world title went to Australia in 3.30.96 minutes, the Netherlands came to 3.38.18. ,,Who can say that he came seventh in the world. This is really good for now. After all, the four of us are in a good position”, Steenbergen showed herself to be a more than satisfied swimmer after day 1 of the World Cup.
It used to be at least one second faster per swimmer in the Orange Quartet. National coach Mark Faber had therefore dubbed whether the Netherlands should register a team for these world championships. The choice to do so turned out well, because with the sixth time in the series, the new generation after the famous Golden Girls proved that they are also final worthy. ,,We couldn’t say for sure in advance”, says World Cup debutant Giele. “I felt very nervous. This is my first World Championship long track, everything was still new this morning. With the certainty that everything went well, it was a little easier to focus.”
Final swimmer Van Roon was of course also happy that 3.37.56 was on the scoreboard after the series. ,,The goal was to reach the final this morning. Finishing sixth and then seventh is a very nice result. We form a new team, then we go swimming with the risk of missing the final. We chose that anyway, because it is actually good for our development. We have to start somewhere and then this is quite a good start, I think.”
In the series, the pressure was like a legacy from the past, in the final no outlier to a medal was expected. ,,We especially enjoyed that we were allowed to swim in a final,” said Busch.
Can the gap be closed again in the coming years? Steenbergen: ,,I hope so. That we can continue to grow and compete with Kira Toussaint and the girls behind it. Then we help each other to a better level.”
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