Niels Kerstholt

Niels Kerstholt
nation	Netherlands
birthday	April 2, 1983
place of birth	Utrecht
size	180 cm
Weight	76 kg
job	Short tracker
Career
society	Hardrijvereniging The Hague
National squad	since 2002
Pers. Best times	500 m - 41.669 sec (Feb. 9, 2008 in Salt Lake City) 1000 m - 1: 25.288 min (Feb. 10, 2008 in Salt Lake City) 1500 m - 2: 14.885 min (Feb. 9, 2007 in Budapest) 3000 m - 4: 51.367 min (Jan. 21, 2007 in Sheffield)
status	active
Medal table
World Cup medals 1 × 1 × 1 × EM medals 0 × 2 × 0 ×
Short track world championships silver 2012 Shanghai 5000 m relay bronze 2013 Debrecen 5000 m relay gold 2014 Montreal 5000 m relay  European Short Track Championships silver Turin 2005 3000 m relay silver Ventspils 2008 All-round
Placements in the Short Track World Cup
Debut in the World Cup November 29, 2002  1000 m world cup 4. ( 06/07 )
last change: December 13, 2008

Niels Kerstholt (born April 2, 1983 in Utrecht ) is a Dutch short tracker .

At the age of seventeen, Kerstholt became Dutch B-Junior Champion in 2000. In the next three years, however, he did not manage to place in the top 5 at national championships, instead he started in January 2002 at the Junior World Championships in Chuncheon and advanced over 1500 meters to the semifinals, where he failed in fifth. In November of the same year he was used for the first time in the Short Track World Cup , in the 2002/03 season he made it to the finals and thus a fourth place with the relay. At the major events of that season, Kerstholt did not achieve any outstanding results. While he never got beyond the preliminary heats in the 2003/04 season in the World Cup, he achieved fourth place in the relay at the European Championships.

The 2004/05 World Cup also ended like the previous ones without participation in the finals, but Kerstholt won the silver medal with the relay at the 2005 European Championship . Also at the European Championships in 2006 he showed good performance again. Kerstholt, he was nominated as one of three Dutch short trackers for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin . Initially, he was only supposed to start over the 1000 meter distance for which he had qualified, but when the Dutch team was also allowed to provide a starter over 1500 meters, he was also used here. While his race on the actual distance was already over after a disqualification in the preliminary run, he was able to at least reach the B-final over 1500 meters and came in eleventh there in fifth.

Shortly after the Olympics, Kerstholt also won the Dutch adult championship for the first time, ahead of Cees Juffermans . In the 2006/07 World Cup, he achieved fourth place at the home race in Heerenveen , where many world-class athletes were missing. Although he did not reach the top 5 over 1000 meters, he was fourth in the discipline World Cup because he consistently started in all races. He was also overall sixth at the 2007 European Championships , both individually and with the relay. He didn't get good results at the World Cup, but instead defended his Dutch championship title. Also in the 2007/08 season Kerstholt achieved some top 10 results in the World Cup, and he also won the silver medal at the 2008 European Championships in Ventspils behind the Latvian Haralds Silovs . In doing so, Kerstholt had collected points for the overall classification, especially with his course victory over 1000 meters. The World Cup, however, ended with a worse result.

With another eighth place, this time over 500 meters, Kerstholt started the Short Track World Cup 2008/09 after he had again defended his title in the national championship at the end of the previous season.

Kerstholt finished fourth in the relay at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi . At the 2014 World Cup in Montreal , he was world champion with the 5000 m relay.

Web links

• Official website
• Niels Kerstholt in the database of ShorttrackOnLine.info (English)