KAMMINGA Arno

General
TIME DIFFERENCE
He says dealing with time difference while travelling has affected his fitness during international competitions and plans to focus on the issue for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. "Every now and then my [body] clock was upset by the time differences. That was not ideal. In Tokyo the finals are in the morning. How do you get used to that? By always flaming. You have to get used to that someday. I'm doing it now." (parool.nl, 20 Oct 2019)

EYES ON TOKYO
He bought the flag of Japan when he competed at the 2017 World Cup series in Tokyo and hangs it on the bedroom door of his apartment in Amsterdam to remind him of his ambition to compete at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. "On vacations I usually buy the flag of the country where we were. In 2017 I was in Tokyo for the World Cup. Every day in the bus from my hotel to the swimming pool I passed the construction site of the Olympic swimming stadium. I found that super cool and inspiring. Then I immediately bought the Japanese flag in a shop. [By seeing that flag] on hard days, I know what I'm doing it for." (ad.nl, 04 Dec 2019)

EARLY DAYS
He felt he was at amateur level and swimming was just a hobby as he never reached the qualification requirements for tournaments during his early days training at the High Performance Centre in Amsterdam. In 2016 coach Mark Faber asked him to join the national squad, and a year later he won a gold medal in the mixed 4x50m medley relay at the 2017 European Short Course Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark. "I had never participated in a large tournament and came out of nowhere for many swimmers. Now they can no longer ignore me and I feel a lot of respect." (ad.nl, 04 Dec 2019; parool.nl, 20 Oct 2019)