Carolijn Brouwer

Carolijn Mariëlle Brouwer (born July 25, 1973 in Leiden , South Holland Province ) is a Dutch - Belgian sailor , Olympic participant and multiple world champion. The athlete was long a member of the yacht club WV Braassemermeer on the inland lake of the same name in Roelofarendsveen, capital of the municipality of Alkemade in the province of South Holland, and has recently started for the Ostend Racing & Sailing Club (OSRC) in Ostend, Belgium .

Life

Carolijn Brouwer was born in South Holland, but spent her childhood in Brazil and for a short time in Zaire . She came back to the Netherlands when she was 15. After finishing school, she studied at the University of Leiden , which she graduated with a diploma in languages and Latin American culture ; In addition to Dutch, the athlete speaks Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and German.

In order to be able to take part in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing with her Belgian friend Sébastien Godefroid in a two-handed catamaran , she took on Belgian citizenship and competed for Belgium at these games. She had previously represented the Dutch team twice at the Olympics.

Sporting successes

International regattas and boat changes

In the Laser Radial Brouwer won her first World Championships

Her first big success as a sailor Carolijn Brouwer reached at the World Junior Championships in 1991 (ISAF Youth World Championship, Scotland) in those days non-Olympic boat class Laser , a technically simple, but not modest one-handed - dinghy . In the same class, she then won the 1993 World Sailing Championships in Takapuna , Auckland . In 1996 she became world champion again in Palma de Mallorca ahead of Karianne Eikeland from Norway and in 1998 she repeated this success at the Travemünder Woche in front of the double Olympic champion Shirley Robertson , both in the Olympic single-handed dinghy Europe . In 1998 she was also the recipient of the ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Award from the International Sailing Federation (ISAF), World Sailor of the Year. Brouwer took part several times in the Volvo Ocean Race , a sailing regatta that goes around the world. One of the many other competitions that Carolijn Brouwer contested was the largest sailing event in the world, the Kiel Week . In the Europe class, she won the regatta in 1998 and 2002.

Due to the strong competition in her own country from Margriet Matthijsse , she was not nominated for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta despite her world title . Since the same fate threatened her for the 2000 Games, she switched to the 470 dinghy , a two-man racing dinghy with trapeze and spinnaker . After she could neither win an Olympic medal in this class in 2000 nor in 2004, she changed the boat class again after 2005 and formed a team in the open tornado (two-handed catamaran) with her Belgian friend Sébastien Godefroid . After intensive training, the couple, which had since separated on a private level, reached the runner-up in Cascais in 2007 behind the Spanish crew Fernando Echávarri / Antón Paz .

Olympic participation

Brouwer took part in three Summer Olympic Games and achieved her best result in 2008 with a 12th place. She started for the first time at the 2000 Games in Sydney and took 13th place in the 470 dinghy together with her partner Alexandra Verbeek at the Olympic Sailing Shore in Rushcutters Bay . At the 2004 Athens Games , she competed in the one-handed dinghy Europe and finished 19th in the Olympic sailing center in Agios Kosmas . After taking on Belgian citizenship, she was part of the Belgian Olympic team for the first time in Beijing in 2008 . Here she reached 12th place in the open tornado together with her partner and former friend Sébastien Godefroid at the Qingdao International Sailing Center . She was the only woman at the start in this sailing regatta.

Sporting competition to her new partner

Carolijn Brouwer is now close friends with the Australian sailor Darren Bundock . The two-time Olympic silver medalist and six-time world champion starts in many competitions in direct competition with Brouwer. For example at the 2008 Olympic Games. Brouwer (with Godefroid) was two places ahead of her new partner in qualifying as the second team, but she had to admit defeat in the final and only came in 12th place, while Bundock / Ashby the Won silver medal. At the 2007 World Cup in Portugal, however, Brouwer beat her new partner and defending champion Bundock and became runner-up; the Bundock team, which won again the following year, did not achieve a medal here. “I don't like it when she hits me. But I also don't like it when someone else beats me, ” Bundock told The Australian newspaper before the World Cup in Portugal . “I want her to do really well here. Winning gold and silver would be a dream. As long as we are the ones who win gold. We won't give her a millimeter out there on the water. And neither do they for us. ” Stern magazine reported in 2008 on the competition between the couple of sailors under the heading Confused Relationships in the Tornado .

As President and Vice-President of the international tornado class association ITA, the couple are working together to repeal the resolution of the World Sailing Association to remove the tornado from the Olympic sailing program at the 2012 London Games .

Web links

• WV Braassemermeer (accessed March 2, 2009)
• Ostend Racing & Sailing Club (OSRC) (accessed March 2, 2009)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Carolijn Brouwer in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original ), accessed March 2, 2009
2. ↑ ^{a b} NBC Olympics, Carolijn Brouwer (accessed March 2, 2009)
3. ^ Kieler Woche, Winner List Europe (accessed March 8, 2009)
4. ↑ Quotes and information from: Tatjana Pokorny: Relationship Confusion in the Tornado . In: stern.de Olympia 2008, August 15, 2008 (accessed March 2, 2009)