June 28 (Reuters) – Marrit Steenbergen broke the ladies’s 100 metres freestyle world report on Saturday, clocking 51.68 seconds on the Sette Colli International Trophy in Rome.
The Dutchwoman eclipsed the earlier report of 51.71 seconds set by Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrom on the 2017 World Championships.
“It still feels so weird … I hope that it will sink in,” the 26-year-old stated after beating the world report.
“But it’s always when someone goes faster you see that it’s going faster in the last (few) years. It’s always when someone does it more people start doing it, like it’s a form of motivation.”
“So I think more people will start swimming 52-lows, 51s, because it always goes like that, and I think that’s really good for the sport.”
Steenbergen completed seventh behind Sjostrom within the 100 metres last on the 2024 Paris Olympics however has been setting the requirements for the reason that Swede went on maternity go away.
She bounced again from her Paris disappointment by defending her world title in Singapore final 12 months, holding off Australia’s former world champion Mollie O’Callaghan. She was additionally voted European Aquatics’ finest girls’s swimmer of 2025 after retaining her title.
Steenbergen had signalled her intent earlier this 12 months, clocking 51.86 seconds on the south coast of France on the Canet cease of the Mare Nostrum sequence in May.
“I really enjoy racing now, and I feel like I believe more in myself. Especially in the 100 I’m like, ‘I know how to do it, I know what I want. Let’s go,'” Steenbergen added.
It was the second world report Sjostrom has misplaced this month, with American Kate Douglass breaking the ladies’s 50 metres freestyle world report at a U.S. Pro Swim Series occasion in Indianapolis.
The 24-year-old clocked 23.59 seconds to higher the 23.61 set by Sjostrom on the 2023 world championships in Japan.
(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul)