Marieke Vervoort

Marieke Vervoort
Marieke Vervoort in September 2012
nation	Belgium
birthday	May 10, 1979
place of birth	This
size	167 cm
Weight	45 kg
date of death	October 22, 2019
Place of death	This
Career
discipline	100 m , 200 m , 400 m , 800 m , 1500 m , 5000 m
society	AC Lyra
Trainer	Jo Cooman, Rudi Diels, Ineke Boekelman
Medal table
Paralympic Games gold 2012 London 100 m silver 2012 London 200 m silver 2016 Rio de Janeiro 400 m bronze 2016 Rio de Janeiro 100 m World Championships for the Disabled gold 2015 Doha 100 m gold 2015 Doha 200 m gold 2015 Doha 400 m

Marieke Vervoort (born May 10, 1979 in Diest ; † October 22, 2019 there ) was a Belgian wheelchair athlete in disabled sports .

Life

Private life

Since she was 14, Vervoort suffered from progressive quadriplegia , which was accompanied by a complex regional pain syndrome . Later came seizures added. This is said to have been caused by deformations of the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae . She had been permanently dependent on a wheelchair since 2000. Vervoort originally wanted to become a sports teacher or educator and studied at the Catholic University of Leuven . However, she later worked as a keynote and motivational speaker.

Vervoort opted for active euthanasia , which is legal in Belgium . Your corresponding application was approved in autumn 2008. In December 2017, she announced that she wanted to take advantage of this euthanasia permit because her condition had rapidly deteriorated: she was in constant pain, depressed and her eyesight was dwindling.

On October 22, 2019, Marieke Vervoort finally ended her life by means of euthanasia.

Athletic career

Vervoort had been an enthusiastic athlete since she was five and tried out a wide variety of disciplines. For example, she rode a mountain bike , did Jiu Jitsu and windsurfing, and went swimming and running .

Even after the onset of her physical limitations, she remained active in sports: She initially started with wheelchair basketball and over the years also played golf , crutch skiing , fencing and diving , went water skiing and beach sailing and also took up swimming again. Finally she discovered the triathlon for herself. At the beginning of September 2006 she was able to secure the world title on the short distance for the first time in Lausanne and at the end of August 2007 she managed to defend it in Hamburg . In these two years she also won the Ironman Hawaii para competition . From 2008 she was no longer able to compete in triathlons because of the progressive paralysis. Instead, in July 2009, she took part in the Blokart European Championships on the Danish North Sea island of Rømø - a variant of sand yachting. In 2010 she completed several marathons and competed in the Blokart World Cup. In October 2011 she became Blokart European Champion in the Fly class in Saint-Malo .

Marieke Vervoort had turned to athletics since 2010 , started there because of her disability in the classification group T 52 and rode all distances between 100 and 5000 meters with a handbike . She competed for the Lier- based AC Lyra and has set numerous world and European records for her performance class.

At the 2012 Paralympic Games in London , she won the gold medal over 100 meters and came second over 200 meters behind the Canadian Michelle Stilwell . After suffering a serious shoulder injury as a result of a fall at the World Disabled Athletics Championships in Lyon in July 2013 , a comeback was initially questionable. However, medical rehabilitation was successful, and in October 2015 Vervoort won three gold medals at the World Championships in the Qatari capital, Doha .

After the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro , Vervoort withdrew from competitive sports. There she once again fought for second place over 400 meters and the bronze medal over 100 meters in September.

Personal best

discipline	place	time	date	annotation
100 m - T 52	Lier	19.19 s	July 27, 2012	(As of September 2016)
200 m - T 52		33.65 s	Before October 2015	(As of September 2016)
400 m - T 52	Kortrijk	1: 04.87 min	July 14, 2013	(As of October 24, 2019)
800 m - T 52	Lede	2: 06.76 min	May 30, 2015	(As of October 24, 2019)
1500 m - T 52	Nottwil	4: 24.47 min	17th May 2014	(As of October 24, 2019)
5000 m - T 52	Nottwil	14: 47.55 min	May 18, 2014	(As of October 24, 2019)

Awards

• 2007: Trots van Vlaanderen (“Pride of Flanders ”) - Fighter of the Year
• 2012: Belgium's Paralympic Athlete of the Year
• 2013: Grand Officer of the Order of the Crown (presented by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde )
• 2014: National Trophy Victor Boin of the Belgian Paralympic Committee
• 2015: Vlaamse Reus ("Flemish Giantess")
• 2015: Belgium's Paralympic Athlete of the Year
• 2016: Decoration of honor of the Flemish Community for its services to Flanders (presented by Geert Bourgeois , the Prime Minister of Flanders)

literature

• Marieke Vervoort: Wielemie. Sporten voor het leven . Houtekiet , Antwerp , 2012, ISBN 978-90-8924-232-7 .
• Marieke Vervoort, Karel Michiels: De other kant van de medaille . De Vrije Uitgevers, Amersfoort , 2017, ISBN 978-9-492-41910-1 .

Web links

Commons : Marieke Vervoort  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marieke 'Wielemie' Vervoort is overleden. In: HLN.be. October 22, 2019, accessed October 23, 2019 (Flemish). 
2. ↑ Biography on Vervoort's official homepage. Retrieved from site.wielemie.be on September 11, 2016.
3. ↑ Gunnar Meinhardt : “The wishes of a terminally ill athlete before death”. In: Die Welt , September 9, 2016. Retrieved from welt.de on September 11, 2016.
4. ↑ Belgian handbiker: Paralympics winner Marieke Vervoort wants to die. In: Spiegel Online . December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 24, 2017 . 
5. ^ Sport1.de: Paralympics winner Marieke Vervoort: Death by euthanasia. Retrieved October 23, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Vervoort's official athlete profile. Retrieved from paralympic.org ( International Paralympic Committee ) on September 11, 2016.