arena is pleased to announce that it has extended its collaboration with Dutch breaststroker Arno Kamminga through the 2024 Paris Olympics. The 26-year-old is the second-fastest 100m breaststroke swimmer in history and the sixth-fastest at 200m.
‘’I’m really glad to continue my journey with Arena on my side for the next few years,” said Arno. “Arena has been my go-to swimming brand for over 8 years now, and I love the high-quality suits they provide. Can’t wait what the next few years have in store for us. ‘’
Arno’s rise through the global swimming ranks has been nothing short of meteoric, but if anything he was a late developer. As a teenager he was never a standout performer, and he confesses to having been something of a “lazy guy” when it came to training. That all changed in 2016 when Mark Faber was appointed head coach of the Netherlands Training Centre in Amsterdam, at a time that Arno had decided to fully commit to swimming. The two immediately made a connection and have since developed a profound understanding, with Arno empowered to take charge of his own trajectory without having to be pushed.
Before 2019, the only international medal Arno had won was a relay gold at the 2017 European Short Course Championships in Copenhagen with the Dutch 4x50 mixed medley team. At the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, he failed to make the 50m breaststroke semi-finals, in 2018 at Glasgow’s European LC Championships he made two finals appearances without podium placing in the 100m and 200m, and at the 2019 World Champs in Gwangju he did not progress beyond the semis in the same events, although he did break the 200m Dutch national record.
However, things had started to click, and in December of 2019 he won his first individual international medals at the Glasgow European SC Championships, winning both the 100m and 200m breaststroke, and placing third at 50m, breaking the Dutch record in all three. By the time January 2020 was over, he had broken the Dutch 50m, 100m and 200m long- and short-course national records a total of 11 times in 7 months.
The global pandemic put paid to further competition in 2020, but in 2021 Arno stormed back at the Netherlands Team Time Trials in April with a stunning 57.90s in the 100m breaststroke, becoming only the second athlete in history to break the 58s barrier in this event. A few weeks later he won his first long-course international medals at the postponed 2020 European Championships in Budapest, pushing Adam Peaty all the way with a time of 58.10s in the 100m breaststroke. He added a second silver medal in the 200m breaststroke in a time of 2:07.35.
Two months later in Tokyo, Arno once again sat right on Peaty’s hip the entire race to claim the silver in 58.00, the third-fastest swim of his career, having set a new Dutch Record of 57.80 in the heats. In a very tight 200m race, with the first 4 finishers touching within 0.86s of each other, he led from the front at world record pace through 100m, only to be overtaken in the last few metres, but he still eclipsed the existing Olympic record with a time of 2:07.01.
He finished off the year with 200m breaststroke silvers at the European SC Championships in Kazan and the World SC Championships in Abu Dhabi, along with gold medals at both in the 4x50m mixed medley relay, with a world record in the former (1:36.18) and a championship record in the latter (1:36.20).
Having enjoyed a stellar 2021, and with today’s breaststroke ranks filled with real contenders, Arno is sure to be champing at the bit for the 2022 season, not least with Budapest’s replacement World Championships in June/July and Rome’s European Champions in August now firmly in his sights.
Arno Kamminga Bio and Best Results
Born: 22 October, 1995, in Katwijk, Netherlands
Disciplines: Breaststroke
Coach: Mark Faber
Club: De Dolfijn, Amsterdam
2021 – XXXII Olympiad, Tokyo
Silver: 100m & 200m breaststroke
LEN European Championships, Budapest
Silver: 100m & 200m breaststroke, 4x100m mixed medley
15th FINA World SC Championships, Abu Dhabi
Gold: 4x50m mixed medley
Silver: 200m breaststroke
LEN European SC Swimming Championships, Kazan
Gold: 4x50m mixed medley
Silver: 200m breaststroke
Bronze: 100m breaststroke, 4x50m medley
2019 – LEN European SC Swimming Championships, Glasgow
Gold: 100m & 200m breaststroke
Silver: 4x50m mixed medley
Bronze: 50m breaststroke
2017 – LEN European SC Swimming Championships, Copenhagen
Gold: 4x50m mixed medley
Photo credit: La Presse / Mine Kasapoglu
