Casper Puggaard National Record Highlights Youth Speed at Danish Open

Casper Puggaard: Photo Courtesy: Istvan Derencsenyi/LEN

Casper Puggaard National Record Highlights Youth Speed at Danish Open

Casper Puggaard started the four-day Danish Open on Thursday by taking down a Danish record set when he was just four years old, the start of a fast opening two days at the meet for Denmark’s up-and-coming generation of swimmers.

Puggaard, 19, led off prelims by going 51.87 in the men’s 100 butterfly at the Bellahoj Svommestadion. That erases the national mark set 15 years and one day prior by Jakob Andkjaer at 52.09. Puggaard had been 52.30 at the World Junior Championships last year, the Danish junior record.

He was unable to improve the time in finals, going 52.23 at night, still 1.23 seconds clear of runner-up Rasmus Nickelsen. His 51.87 is an Olympic consideration cut, shy of the A cut of 51.67.

Fellow 19-year-old Robert Falborg Pedersen downed the national mark in the 50 back on Friday. He went 25.33 in finals to win and erase the time of 25.43 set by Magnus Jakupsson in 2016.

Nicholas Castella set a pair of junior records through the first half of the meet. He lowered his national junior record in the 200 back by nearly a second. Entered at 2:01.22 from last summer, he went 2:00.61 in prelims then 2:00.30 in finals to win. In Friday’s 200 free, he got to the wall first in 1:48.48. That clubs nearly a full second off Frederik Siem Pedersen’s national junior record of 1:49.46 from 2009.

Frederik Moller nearly joined the club. The sprinter went 22.38 in the men’s 50 free to get within .02 seconds of another Andkjaer mark from 2009. He was slower at night in 22.44, which allowed Sweden’s Elias Persson to sneak in and get the win in 22.39.

The fastest swim relative to Olympic standards of the first two days was courtesy of Helena Rosendahl Bach. She bossed the final of the women’s 200 fly in 2:07.86, nine tenths slower than the national record of 2:06.93 she set in Stockholm just last week. That was an A cut to get her to Paris.

Elisabeth Sabroe Ebbesen and Signe Bro tied for the win in the women’s 100 free, both going 54.37. The A cut in the event is 53.61. Thea Blomsterberg won the women’s 100 breast in 1:07.17, which is just .05 shy of a B cut.

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