Swimmer Tes Schouten surprisingly took silver in the 100 meter breaststroke at the world championships in Qatar. The 23-year-old resident of Amsterdam swam with 1.05.82, only a tenth above her national record of 1.05.71.
The Chinese Qianting Tang swam convincingly to gold in the final in 1.05.27. Siobhan Haughey from Hong Kong came third in 1.05.92. Schouten himself did not expect to be able to go for a medal in the 100 meters. She already won the World Cup bronze at the double distance last year.
Vale of tears
Today was a much less successful day for Kira Toussaint. The swimmer from Assendelft succumbed in the 100 meter backstroke under the great pressure she had imposed on herself. The veteran wanted to “really do very well” for her recently deceased grandmother, but that urge broke her. “I didn’t deal with it well,” said an emotional Toussaint (29) afterwards in front of the camera of the NOS.
With the women’s relay, Toussaint surprisingly won the world title in the 4×100 meter freestyle on the opening day of the World Championships in Doha, partly thanks to a strong race by herself. “The pressure was already in my head at the time and things were going very well. So I know I am in good shape, but this is really a very slow time.”
Toussaint thinks that this difference may be due to the team feeling that comes with a relay. “Then it is much easier to distribute the pressure, because you know that you have very good teammates to lean on. Normally I can handle this well, but now it just didn’t work at all.”
