Marrit Steenbergen lowers pressure and repeats in 100m freestyle

When Marrit Steenbergen won the 100m freestyle at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha, a shroud of expectations surrounded her. Just five months ahead of the Paris Olympics, she was the number one swimmer in the world at 52.26, and was swimming faster than she ever had.

In Paris, despite being one of the favorites for the gold medal, she finished seventh at 52.83. Had she swum her best time, she would have come second. All the pressure and all the glitz and glamour of the event got the best of her, and she admitted she was putting too much into trying to win the medal.

“Dutch media can be big on you when you’re a medal favorite for the Olympics,” Steenbergen told World Aquatics before the World Championships. “I wanted to make a medal, but mostly I wanted to swim my best time… so to swim like 0.6 above my PB was pretty tough and it came with a seventh place. But if I did a 52.2 and a seventh place, you know, that would have been much better.

“And it was pretty tough because I still had some races to go. I had a relay the next morning and it was pretty tough to find the strength to keep going, actually.”

Changing the mindset

After Paris, Steenbergen took three to four months out of the pool. Swimming had been turned off from her head – she didn’t want to look at results of the World Cup or the World Short Course Championships extensively. Her gym sessions in the late months of 2024 became therapeutic for her, using the time to see her friends and teammates, but she didn’t return to the pool until November, limiting herself to three times a week in addition to her three 90-minute gym sessions.

“I think if I went straight back to training after Paris, I wouldn’t have been that strong mentally,” Steenbergen said. “It would have been a challenge to finish this season so I think it made me stronger.”

Patience was key in her build up to peak form, which took a bit of time. She wanted to be fast again, but she needed not to rush so as to not hurt herself. When the calendar turned in January, she was ready to start training seriously again.

This season looked a bit different for Steenbergen, who has been known for big lineups at international meets. At the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, she raced 19 times, including a bronze in the 100m freestyle. A year later in Doha, she had 14 races. In Paris, she had ten. She knows how to handle the whole process, but a smaller event lineup was necessary for 2025.

“I don’t know if I can do that again,” she said of 19 swims in 2023. “You just try to manage your time in the pool as (best) as you can. Like, not be there for six hours and stuff…sleep as much as you can, even though you’re home late and have to get up early, and accept that it’s going to be tough.”

This year, she dropped the 200m freestyle and 200m IM from her line-up while the Dutch team also did not field a 4x200m freestyle team. She instead picked up the 100m backstroke in addition to her two usuals – the 50m and 100m freestyle.

In the world rankings coming into the meet, she sat second in the world rankings in the 100m freestyle, her 52.77 best from May being faster than what she did at the Olympics. A medal was definitely possible, and gold wasn’t out of reach either. But the focus wasn’t on the result, as was the mistake in Paris.

“The goal is to make a final but that has always been the goal,” Steenbergen said before the meet. “We try to see it round by round so try to make semis. I think I have to make that and then try to make a final and when I’m in the final, I want to see what I can do there. That has always been my mindset.

“So now I’m trying to get back again to, okay, a final first, have fun. Mostly just try to have fun and take it easy and be in the moment. It’s fun to be there and my teammates are my friends.”

In the 100m freestyle final, Steenbergen was the top seed and the favorite to win gold over the likes of two-time World champ Mollie O’Callaghan of Australia, and Olympic silver medalist Torri Huske of the United States.

“Well, when you’re in the call room, you do want to get that medal,” Steenbergen said after the race. “But I just tried to come out there and enjoy it as much as I can. I looked for my parents in the stands, I looked for my team – just those small things I tried to do always before a race. Just try to enjoy racing in a Worlds final because that’s not what you do every day.”

Steenbergen flipped third at the 50m mark in a dead heat with O’Callaghan and 0.34 behind Huske. Coming home in 27.21, the fastest of the eight finalists, Steenbergen touched the wall first at 52.55 and the gold was hers once again.

“At the beginning of the season, I was like, okay, I want to make worlds again, because I don’t know how my shape was going to be. Just to be here in the final and now to win, it’s crazy. I did not expect that after the Olympics.”

The Dutch Tradition

The Dutch women have long been a powerhouse in the 4x100m freestyle relay. Before Australia started its Olympic winning streak in that relay in London 2012, the Dutch briefly dominated that event from 2008 – 2011, starting with a gold in Beijing 2008, the only relay the Americans and Australians did not win that year.

“I was at a friend’s house and I wanted to go home because I did not want to see it with a friend who doesn’t understand swimming,” Steenbergen told World Aquatics before the meet about the gold medal winning relay. “So I went home and watched it with my parents.

“I was eight at that time…I remember being motivated by it. Like, that is so cool to see a team winning an Olympic gold medal and a year later being world champion. If you’re a swimmer, then it’s like, ‘okay, I want to be on that team,’ and it really motivates young kids to keep training.”

Two of those relay members from 2008 – Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Femke Heemskerk, served as mentors for Steenbergen in her young career, having swam on the relay with her at the 2015 World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympics. Past champions Inge de Bruijn and Marleen Veldhuis also served as mentors and role models for the future generations.

“Because we had those good swimmers in the past, we know what the technique has to be like for a sprint. My coach now actually worked together with Ranomi and Femke, so he has some experience with that and with training to get to that level. We do a lot of video and that kind of stuff. And we have a good strength and conditioning coach. So it’s like they know how to make a good freestyler because it’s been in the past for so long so I think that’s kind of just works through.”

During the meet, the possibility of a medal seemed real after she anchored the Dutch team to a bronze medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay at 51.64, the fastest split of her career. It was the 12th time the Dutch women won a medal in that relay at the World Championships.

“That first night, I did not really expect that 51.6,” Steenbergen said after her 100m freestyle heat in Singapore. “I knew I had to go fast but I thought, okay, ‘maybe I do 51.9 or something,’ so I’m really happy with that.

“We keep it up,” Steenbergen said of the relay tradition. “It was sad to miss the final during the Olympics with the relay, so to catch up now and win a medal, that’s really good.”

Steenbergen is just the third 100m freestyle World champion for the Dutch, following de Bruijn from Fukuoka 2001 and her own win from Doha 2024. It’s extra special after not coming through at the Olympics, validating her change in mindset.

“It feels so crazy. In this field, again, I don’t know what to feel, I’m just so happy,” Steenbergen said. “I was at 75 when I saw I was slightly ahead, but I knew Mollie just goes so fast in that second 50, and I felt like I was getting tired, so it’s like okay, just keep going, keep going. I tried not to look at her, so it was just at the finish that I knew for sure that I had her.”