Florine Gaspard Rewrites Two More Records As Belgian Championships Wrap Up
Florine Gaspard continued her record-breaking run by setting two new standards on the final day of the Belgian Championships in Gent.
The 23-year-old first set about the 50m breaststroke where she stopped the clock at 29.33 to shave 0.15 from the 29.48 record she set last month at the World Cup. She returned for the 100 free where she went 52.57, 0.04 inside Roos Vanotterdijk’s record (52.61) from December 2024.
It brought to four the number of records Gaspard set over three days, having gone 23.80 in the 50 free on Friday and 1:04.30 in the 100m breaststroke.
Noah Verreth has also been rewriting the record books. He started off by lowering the 50 back mark on three occasions and in prelims on Sunday he took down the 100 back standard in 51.04 to cut 0.72 from Alexandre Marcourt’s record of 51.76 that had stood since July 2021. He returned for the final in the evening to become the first Belgian through the 51-sec barrier in 50.36.
Noah de Schryver set about the men’s 200m breaststroke record in 2:04.51 as he cut 0.71 from Basten Caerts’ 2:05.22 that stood since August 2017. De Schryver finished second behind Caspar Corbeau who completed a breaststroke clean sweep in 2:01.02. The Dutch swimmer, who set a WR of 2:01.02 at the World Cup last month, had gone 55.59 in the 100m and 25.74 in the 50.
Vanotterdijk won the 200IM in 2:06.98 and will next compete at the short-course Europeans in Lublin, Poland, from 2-7 December.