Marrit Steenbergen Seizes Control of 100 Freestyle During Incredible Week at Mare Nostrum
Never has a two-time world champion been so underrated as Marrit Steenbergen. The Dutch swimmer captured the 100 freestyle crown in 2024 and 2025, but the first title came against a field missing numerous high-profile stars deep in their preparation for the Olympic Games. When Steenbergen won against a more representative field a year later, she came up short of the fastest time in the world.
But after what she achieved in the span of a week on the Mare Nostrum tour, no one doubts this 26-year-old as the top swimmer in the world in her main event. Steenbergen had already been building momentum after she clocked 52.33 in a win at the Bergen Swim Festival, defeating multi-time Olympic medalist Siobhan Haughey while coming up just seven hundredths behind her personal best. Steenbergen would erase her top time with a 52.13 to win the Monaco stop of the tour before kicking it into high gear in Canet and Barcelona.
The second leg of the tour brought a performance of 51.86, crushing that days-old best time and standing as the No. 2 performance in history. The only faster time had come nine years earlier when Sarah Sjostrom swam the still-standing world record of 51.71 in Budapest. Steenbergen moved up from ninth on the all-time performers list, jumping an all-star list that included Olympic champions Emma McKeon, Simone Manuel and Britta Steffen plus Haughey and world-title winners Cate Campbell and Mollie O’Callaghan.
Marrit Steenbergen (center) with Mollie O’Callaghan & Torri Huske with their 100 freestyle medals at the 2025 World Championships — Photo Courtesy: Emily Cameron
Suddenly, the world record was on high alert entering the last stop. That would not come to pass, but Steenbergen still got under the 52-second barrier again. Home in 26.88, quicker than in the Canet race, Steenbergen won the Barcelona 100 free in 51.97. That made her the first woman in history to swim that fast on two separate occasions.
Backing up her breakthrough was especially significant given the timing: not far away in London, American Anna Moesch had also reached the 51s that same week, swimming an American record of 51.94 at the AP London International to briefly occupy the second spot all-time behind Sjostrom. The 20-year-old Moesch has never raced in a major international 100 free final, her lone appearance on the big stage coming with prelims relay swims at last year’s World Championships, and this year’s international calendar means a potential matchup with Steenbergen remains a year away, at least in long course.
Now, no one can deny the legitimacy of Steenbergen as the world’s best 100 freestyler, not with the gold medals and best times to back it up. This series of races served as a preparation for the European Championships scheduled for mid-August in Paris, and Steenbergen has established herself as the heavy favorite to win another crown after first doing so four years ago in Rome.
Any success later this summer would add to an already-incredible collection of continental honors for Steenbergen, last year’s European Female Swimmer of the Year. Last December at the European Short Course Championships in Lublin, Poland, Steenbergen notched six gold medals along with one silver and one bronze. She lowered continental records in her gold-medal wins in the 100 and 200 free plus the 100 and 200 individual medley, and she added one more in the 50 backstroke leading off the Dutch women’s victorious 200 medley relay.
Moving forward, Steenbergen will fight to hold onto the top spot in this year’s 100 free long course world rankings against rivals such as Haughey, O’Callaghan and an American contingent including Moesch and Torri Huske, last year’s top-ranked swimmer. O’Callaghan will have to pay close attention to results coming in from the Commonwealth Games, Pan Pacific Championships and Asian Games to see who ends up on top in this middle year of the Olympic quad.