Thom de Boer Hits 21.74 Olympic-Qualifying 50 Free Dutch Record

ROTTERDAM QUALIFICATION MEET (NED)

• Thursday, December 3rd – Sunday, December 6th
• Zwemcentrum Rotterdam, Netherlands
• LCM (50m)
• Olympic Qualifier/European Championships Qualifier
• Entries
• SwimSwam Meet Preview
• Live Results
• Live Stream

During the day 1 heats of the 2020 Rotterdam Qualification Meet (RQM) in the Netherlands, we already saw 25-year-old European Short Course champion Arno Kamminga produce a new national record in the men’s 50m breast. You can read more about that performance here.

Just a few events later, however, the men’s 50m free national record also bit the dust, courtesy of 28-year-old Thom de Boer.

De Boer floored the field with a time of 21.74, the only sub-22 second outing of the morning heats, to claim the top seed for tonight’s final. In doing so, he established a new national record, overtaking the previous Dutch standard of 21.82 Jesse Puts produced 4 years ago.

Entering this meet, de Boer’s PB rested at the 22.04 he notched in Eindhoven back in 2017. However, De Boer’s 21.74 morning effort here now renders him as just the 2nd man ever from The Netherlands to have dipped under the 22-second threshold.

Additionally, his time gets under the FINA ‘A’ qualification time of 22.01 needed for the Olympic Games, adding his name to the aforementioned Puts who had already earned consideration with his 21.91 semifinal finish from the 2019 World Championships.

We’ll see if these roster spots get shaken up once the final takes place in a few hours. In the meantime, de Boer checks in as the world’s 39th fastest man ever in this LCM 50 freestyle event.

Of note, de Boer raced as a member of Team Iron in season 2 of the ISL where he earned 49.5 points on the season.