Marrit Steenbergen could make the same kind of impact at the European Aquatics Championships Paris 2026 as she did last December at the EA Short Course Championships in Lublin, where she earned five golds and set five European records.
The 26-year-old Dutch swimmer, who retained her world 100m freestyle title last year and set a world record of 51.68 in that event on June 27 this year in Rome, is entered for five events – the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, 50m backstroke and 100m backstroke.
She is clearly favourite in the women’s 100m, the heats of which start of the opening day on Monday (August 10).
Her nearest rivals appear likely to be Italy’s 19-year-old Sara Curtis, who has clocked 52.69 this year, her 21-year-old Dutch team-mate Milou Van Wijk, the European U23 50m and 100m freestyle champion who has recorded 52.91 this season and experienced home swimmer Beryl Gasteldello.
In the 50m freestyle Steenbergen is equal second fastest with Curtis on 24.09, with top place in this year’s rankings going to Sweden’s 32-year-old triple Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrom, who returned to the sport in April this year at the age of 32 after giving birth to son Adrian in August 2025.
Despite missing 20 months of training she is already back in contention to add to her current total of 28 European long course medals, which include 17 golds.
Sjostrom clocked 23.86 for the women’s 50m freestyle at the Sette Colli International in Rome at the end of June, finishing second to Gretchen Walsh, who swam 23.55 to take 0.40 off the world record set by fellow American Kate Douglass nine days earlier.
The encouraging fact for the Swede was that she was only 0.25 adrift of the world record of 23.61 she set in 2023.
It was Sjostrom’s 2017 100m freestyle mark of 51.71 that Steenbergen surpassed in Rome this year.
The Dutch swimmer stands third in this season’s European rankings for the 200m freestyle with a best of 1:56.02 in a list headed by Britain’s Freya Colbert on 1:54.34 and Czech swimmer Barbora Seemanova on 1:55.20.
In the 50m backstroke, where Curtis set a European record of 27.07 in Rome on June 27, Steenbergen is sixth fastest.
Britain’s Lauren Cox is second in the list on 27.15 from France’s Mary-Ambre Moluh on 27.20.
Only Moluh has gone quicker in the 100m backstroke this year. The French athlete tops the rankings on 58.25, with Steenbergen on 58.33. She is sandwiched between Moluh and another home athlete, Pauline Mahieu, who has clocked 59.13.
Meanwhile the 21-year-old rising force that is Roos Vanotterdijk of Belgium is entered in five events, with the most likely spoils likely to be had for her in the 100m and 50m butterfly, where she is respectively world silver and world bronze medallist.
Vanotterdijk is second in the 50m butterfly European list on 25.31, behind the 25.05 set by Sjostrom, while in the 100m butterfly she stands third on 56.74 behind Germany’s Angelina Kohler on 56.35 and Daria Klepikova of NAB on 56.42.
The Belgian is eighth-ranked in the women’s 100m final on 53.62, and ninth-ranked in the 50m backstroke, where she has clocked 27.67.
She also stands third in the 200m individual medley standings on 2:09.73 behind Britain’s Abbie Wood on 2:08.17 and Anastasia Gorbenko of Israel on 2:09.68, with Smith fourth on 2:10.32 and Walshe on 2:10.49.
In the distance events Germany’s Isabel Gose is poised for further success after earning open water swimming golds in the Seine in the 3km knockout sprint and the mixed 4x1500m relay.
Gose tops the rankings on 4:02.90 in the women’s 400m freestyle, where she will seek to regain the title she won in Rome four years ago, with her perennial rival Simone Quadarella second fastest on 4:03.44.
In the 800m and the 1500m freestyle – the latter being the event in which she won bronze at the Paris 2024 Games – Gose is second in the rankings with her respective 2026 bests of 8:18.23 and 15:52.34, with Quadarella topping the list on 8:12.81 and 15:31.79.
Lithuania’s 29-year-old London 2012 gold medallist and six-times world champion Ruta Meilutyte will seek her fourth European title in her signature event of the 50m breaststroke, where she tops the rankings on 29.54 ahead of Benedetta Pilato of Italy on 29.87 and Estonia’s 19-year-old Eneli Jefimova, who won the European 100m breaststroke title in 2024, on 30.02.
Jefimova is fifth fastest ranked in the 100m breaststroke on 1:05.81 in a list headed by Great Britain’s double Commonwealth champion Angharad Evans on 1:04.96 and Germany’s current world champion Anna Elendt on 1:05.19.
Evans also tops the pile in the women’s 200m breaststroke on 2:19.70 from NAB’s Evgeniia Chikunova on 2:19.96.
Britain’s 16-year-old Amalie Smith, who retained her European junior 400m individual medley title in Munich before taking silver in that event and bronze in the women’s 200m IM at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, heads the 400m IM entries on 4:35.18, with Ireland’s Ellen Walshe on 4:35.32 and Hungary’s 17-year-old Vivien Jackl on 4:37.47.
Great Britain’s Keanna Macinnes, who won Commonwealth 100m and 200m butterfly for Scotland last month, tops the list at the longer distance having clocked 2:06.76 for her home medal. Joint second behind her on 2:07.47 are Paolo Borrelli of Italy and Denmark’s Helena Bach, who won world silver and European gold in 2024.
NAA’s Anastasiya Shkurdai leads the list in the women’s 200m backstroke from Estella Tonrath Nollgen of Spain on 2:08.03.
Turkiye’s Defne Kurt heads the list of athletes in the women’s 50m freestyle para on 27.23 from two Dutch para-swimmers – Lisa Kruger on 28.24 and Florianne Bultje on 28.66.
Kurt also tops the qualifiers for the women’s 100m freestyle para on 59.08 from Kruger on 1:00.68 and Portugal’s Susana Veiga on 1:04.19.
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Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics
