Rikke Moller Pedersen Makes Herning Home Team Ahead of European Short Course Championships

By Rokur Jakupsstovo, Swimming World Scandinavian Correspondent

HERNING, Denmark, September 21. DANISH superstar Rikke Moller Pedersen has signed a one-year deal to move her training base to the Herning Swim Club this year ahead of Denmark hosting the European Short Course Championships in Herning later this year.

Moller Pedersen, a two-time world short course champion with a pair of triumphs at the 2012 Istanbul Championships, is loading up after an epic performance at the long course world championships this summer in Barcelona. In Spain, Moller Pedersen took silver in the 200-meter breaststroke after setting the world record in the event during semifinals with a 2:19.11.

Moller Pedersen is a Euro Short Course stalwart, having already won six golds and two silvers in short course continental competition since first winning the 200-meter breaststroke at the 2009 Istanbul edition.

“Rikke is a great acquisition for the Herning team,” Danish National Head Coach Nick Juba said. “After breaking the world 200m breaststroke record at the World Championships in Barcelona, she went on to lower European short course standards in the World Cups that followed. With the European short course Championships being staged at Herning in December, the timing could not have been better for the club and the city.”

The deal runs from Sept. 1, 2013 until Aug. 31, 2014, and is the latest feather in the cap of the Herning Swim Club. The club also has plans to build a new 50-meter pool by 2015 in what could lead to an oasis for swimmers across the country to head to the city. Moller Pedersen, however, will still put in training time at the National Training Center in Copenhagen.

“The Herning Swim Club board is unanimous behind this decision, and it has been important to our club that the project surrounding Rikke is fully funded by sponsorship contracts, separately negotiated for this particular project,” Herning Swim Club board chair John Axel Hansen said.

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