Inge Dekker Stops Just Short of Lifetime Best, Wins Two More at KNZB Challenger Dordrecht

The second day of the KNZB Challenger meet in Dordrecht, Netherlands highlighted more great swims from the country’s senior-level stars in the intermission of the European Junior Championships. For the second straight day, it was Dutch swimmer Inge Dekker who put on the show by winning another pair of events.

Dekker took her first win of a pair on the day with a 25.51 in the women’s 50 fly, which misses her season and career best swim of 25.50 from the Sette Colli earlier this year by .01 seconds.

The predictable path is now being taken in this event; with Sarah Sjostrom having blown well through the old World Record a week ago in Sweden, others are now approaching the old standard multiple times in-season. The whole world can expect over the next 12 months to see several more swimmers under 25 seconds, with the epicenter of that being this year’s European Championships: a meet that will see the world’s four top-ranked swimmers so far in 2014.

While it’s a little tough to make out the entirety of the 50 meters, it appears as though Dekker didn’t breathe for the entire distances: emulating the strategy we saw from Sarah Sjostrom. Watch the video of the entire session here, with Dekker’s 50 fly coming around the 2:01:00 mark.

Taking 2nd place in the event was Elinore de Jong in 27.21, and in 3rd was 14-year old Marrit Steenbergen in 27.96: a new Netherlands Junior Record.

So good was Dekker’s swim that it was almost as fast as the men’s race winner. Steven Nonnekes took that event in 25.43.

Dekker would win again later in the session in the women’s 100 free, going a 54.65 to top her National Training Center partner Maud van der Meer (54.97). That swim for van der Meer is exciting as they poke around for some new blood for their free relays: it’s the third-fastest of her career, and the best she’s been outside of a National Championship meet.

The only other big national star racing on day 2 of this Challenger meet was breaststroker Moniek Nijhuis. She took the women’s 100 meter race in 1:08.35, and in the process beat out easily a lifetime best for Anouk Elzerman of 1:09.48. Elzerman, who at 24 years old would be on the top end of where a swimmer can really “break through,” is having by far the best season of her career, and might be entering the picture for a 2016 Olympic run.

Full, live meet results available here.