Swimming’s Great Barriers: When The Impossible Becomes Expected

By Giusy Cisale on SwimSwam
Tonight in Rome, Marrit Steenbergen reminded the swimming world that no barrier lasts forever.
Her 51.68 world record in the women’s 100 freestyle did more than erase Sarah Sjostrom‘s iconic mark that had stood since 2017. It offered another powerful reminder that the sport’s greatest time barriers are often broken twice: first in the mind, and only then on the clock.
Over the past few weeks, the signs had already been there.
Kate Douglass rewrote th