Pieter van den Hoogenband

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Men’s Swimming
Olympic medal record
Gold	2000 Sydney	100m freestyle
Gold	2000 Sydney	200m freestyle
Gold	2004 Athens	100m freestyle
Silver	2004 Athens	200m freestyle
Silver	2004 Athens	4x100m freestyle relay
Bronze	2000 Sydney	50m freestyle
Bronze	2000 Sydney	4x200m freestyle relay
World Aquatics Championship
Bronze	1998 Perth	200m Freestyle
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	50m freestyle
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	100m freestyle
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	200m freestyle
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	4x100m freestyle relay
Bronze	2003 Barcelona	50m freestyle
Silver	2003 Barcelona	100m freestyle
Silver	2003 Barcelona	200m freestyle
Silver	2007 Melbourne	200 m freestyle

Pieter Cornelis Martijn van den Hoogenband (born March 14, 1978 in Geldrop, near Eindhoven) is a Dutch swimmer and a triple Olympic champion. He is the current world record holder in 100 m freestyle swimming (47.84s).

The son of Cees-Rein van den Hoogenband and Astrid Verver, a former Dutch 800m freestyle silver medalist at the European Championships, Pieter grew up in Geldrop, where he swam for PSV Eindhoven. His father is a team doctor with the professional football team of the same club. In 1993, Pieter achieved his first successes, performing well on the European Youth Olympic Days.

Prior to the Atlanta Games, Astrid van den Hoogenband, who was coaching the Dutch team, became frustrated with the swimmers representing the Netherlands, feeling they had much potential but would not be able to live up to it due to lack of adequate support. She pleaded with Cees to take action, as he carried much weight from his professional connections. After Astrid threatened to remove Pieter from the sport, Cees created a small foundation and signed up 20 initial sponsors who each paid $2,500 to fund a team trainer. The Dutch swimming team eventually signed extremely lucrative contracts with Philips, Nike, and Speedo. Enough funds were raised to open a swim school in Eindhoven, van den Hoogenband's place of residence. The team eventually grew to ten. Pieter remained the Netherlands' brightest star, and along with fellow Dutch Inge de Bruijn brought the Netherlands many victories in the sport.

His international breakthrough came at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Only 18 years old, van den Hoogenband surprised many by finishing 4th in both the 100 and 200 m freestyle.

After winning 6 gold medals at the 1999 European Championships, he was one of the favourites at the 2000 Summer Olympics, but his adversaries were formidable. In the 200 m freestyle, he faced Australian youngster Ian Thorpe, favourite of the home crowd in Sydney. In the semi-finals, van den Hoogenband set a new world record, but Thorpe countered with a time only 0.02s slower. In an exciting final, van den Hoogenband equalled his time from the semi-finals to win the gold medal. In the 100 m freestyle, van den Hoogenband again set a world record in the semi-finals and won his second gold medal, defeating the 1992 and 1996 champion, Alexander Popov. He won two more medals, both bronze, in the 50 m freestyle and the 4 x 200 m freestyle relay, in which he was the final swimmer.

He was named the 2000 Male World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World magazine .

At the 2001 Aquatics World Championships, van den Hoogenband won four silver medals in the 50, 100, 200 and 4 x 100 m freestyle events. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, he won a gold medal in the 100m freestyle and two silvers in the 200m freestyle and the 4 x 100m freestyle relay.

He and his wife, former medley swimmer Minouche Smit, are expecting their first child in June 2007.

[edit] See also

List of swimmers

[edit] References

Swim Rankings profile
Zwemkroniek (in Dutch)

Olympic champions in men's 100 m freestyle

Olympic champions in men's 200 m freestyle
1900: Frederick Lane \| 1968: Michael Wenden \| 1972: Mark Spitz \| 1976: Bruce Furniss \| 1980: Sergey Kopliakov \| 1984: Michael Groß \| 1988: Duncan Armstrong \| 1992: Yevgeny Sadovyi \| 1996: Danyon Loader \| 2000: Pieter van den Hoogenband \| 2004: Ian Thorpe

Sporting positions
Preceded by Michael Klim	Men's 100 metre freestyle world record holder (long course) 19 September 2000 – present	Incumbent
Preceded by Gianni Romme	Dutch Sportsman of the Year 1999 to 2000	Succeeded by Erik Dekker
Preceded by Erben Wennemars	Dutch Sportsman of the Year 2004	Succeeded by Yuri van Gelder
Preceded by Ian Thorpe	World Swimmer of the Year 2000	Succeeded by Ian Thorpe

Persondata
NAME	Van den Hoogenband, Pieter Cornelis Martijn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Dutch swimmer
DATE OF BIRTH	March 14, 1978
PLACE OF BIRTH	Maastricht, Limburg, The Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH