Pieter van den Hoogenband

Pieter van den Hoogenband
Personal information
Surname:	Pieter Cornelis Martijn van den Hoogenband
Nickname (s):	Hoogie, VDH, The Dutch Dolphin, The Flying Dutchman
Nation:	Netherlands
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle
Birthday:	March 14, 1978
Place of birth:	Maastricht
Size:	1.93 m
Weight:	83 kg
Medal table

Pieter Cornelis Martijn van den Hoogenband (born March 14, 1978 in Maastricht ) is a former Dutch swimmer . At the Olympic Games in 2000 and 2004 , he won a total of three gold medals.

Career

Van den Hoogenband grew up in Geldrop . There he started training in the swimming department of PSV Eindhoven . His father worked for the club as a team doctor for the soccer team in the Dutch Eredivisie .

Van den Hoogenband celebrated his first successes at the European Summer Olympic Youth Days in 1993 . He made his international breakthrough three years later. As an 18-year-old van den Hoogenband surprised the professional world during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta when he finished fourth in both the 100 m freestyle and the 200 m freestyle.

After winning six gold medals at the European Swimming Championships in 1999, he was considered one of the favorites for the Olympic Games in 2000 . In the 200 m freestyle he met his fiercest rival, the Australian and world record holder Ian Thorpe . In the semifinals van den Hoogenband already beat Thorpe's world record by 63 hundredths of a second, but Thorpe was only two hundredths slower. In the final van den Hoogenband managed to set his world record and he won the gold medal. Van den Hoogenband also set a world record in the semifinals in the 100 m freestyle race. In the final, he secured his second gold medal and dethroned the two-time Olympic champion Alexander Popov . He won two other medals in bronze in the 50m freestyle and with the Dutch 4 × 200m freestyle relay.

At the 2001 World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka , Japan , van den Hoogenband won four silver medals in the 50 m, 100 m and 200 m freestyle as well as with the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens he won gold in the 100 m freestyle and silver in the 200 m freestyle and with the Dutch 4 × 100 m relay. At the European Swimming Championships in Budapest in 2006 , a gold medal in the 200 m freestyle and a bronze medal in the 100 m freestyle followed.

After finishing fifth in the 100 m freestyle final at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing , van den Hoogenband announced his retirement from active swimming.

Awards

• Europe's Sportsman of the Year : 2000
• World swimmer of the year : 2000
• European swimmer of the year : 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004
• Dutch Sportsman of the Year : 1999, 2000, 2004
• World Sportsman of the Year ( La Gazzetta dello Sport ): 2000

Web links

• Pieter van den Hoogenbands Blog (English)
• Profile at zwemkroniek.com (English)
• Pieter van den Hoogenband in the database of Swimrankings.net (English)
• Pieter van den Hoogenband in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Contribution to the short course EM in Rijeka on Focus Online