Pieter van den Hoogenband
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Pieter Cornelis Martijn van den Hoogenband (born March 14, 1978) is a Dutch swimmer, and a triple Olympic champion.
Born in Maastricht to Cees-Rein van den Hoogenband and Astrid Verver, a former Dutch 800m freestyler silver medalist at the European Championships. Van den Hoogenband 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, he 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 great potential that they were not able to live up to due to lack of adequate support. She pleaded with Cees to take action, as he carried much weight from his professional connections. After finally threatening to remove Pieter from the sport, Cees jumped in, creating a small foundation for the sport and signing up 20 initial sponsors who each paid $2500 to fund a team trainer. As his deals grew, the Dutch swimming team signed extremely lucrative deals 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 Dutchman Inge de Bruijn brought the Netherlands its first real victories in the sport.
His international breakthrough came in Atlanta. Aged 18, van den Hoogenband surprised by finishing 4th in both the 100 and 200 m freestyle at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
After winning no less than 6 gold medals at the 1999 European Championships, he was one of the favourites for the 2000 Summer Olympics, but his adversaries were strong. In the 200 m freestyle, he met 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 0.02 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, Aleksandr Popov. He won two more medals, both bronze, in the 50 m freestyle and as the final swimmer for the Dutch 4 x 200 m freestyle relay team.
At the 2001 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, van den Hoogenband went on to win a gold medal in the 100m Free, as well as two silvers, one in the 200m Free and another swimming with Team Netherlands in the 4x100m Free relay.
See also
it:Pieter van den Hoogenband nl:Pieter_van_den_Hoogenband ja:ピーター・ファン・デン・ホーヘンバンド