Leopoldus Eduardus Theoduris "Leo" Peelen (16 July 1968 – 24 March 2017) was a Dutch

track cyclist Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it wa ...

. He won the

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc ...

at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and commonly known as Seoul 1988 ( ko, 서울 1988, Seoul Cheon gubaek palsip-pal), was an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October ...

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

in the points race. The following year, he captured a bronze medal at the 1989 World Championships. Peelen became six times Dutch champion on the track (Pointsrace in 1983, 1984, 1985 (winter), Individual Pursuit 1986 and Madison 1987 and 1988). He was the chairman of the organization of the yearly time trial and cycling festival in

Beek Beek (; li, Baek ) is a town and municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, in the province of Limburg. As of 2012, Beek has a population of about 16,400, of which about 8,800 live in the town of Beek. The municipality of Beek makes part o ...

. He was one of the 66 riders who participated in the first

Alpe d'HuZes Alpe d'HuZes is a Dutch fundraising event for combating cancer in which people climb, typically by bike, six times in a single day. The mountain Alpe d'Huez is well-known in the Netherlands as one of the main Tour de France mountains where Dutch c ...

when he climbed the Alpe d'Huez six times on 6 June 2006. They fundraised €400,000 for the Dutch Cancer Society during that event. On 24 March 2017, Peelen died unexpectedly at the age of 48.

References

1968 births 2017 deaths Dutch male cyclists Cyclists at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic cyclists for the Netherlands Olympic silver medalists for the Netherlands Sportspeople from Arnhem Dutch track cyclists Olympic medalists in cycling Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics Cyclists from Gelderland 20th-century Dutch people 21st-century Dutch people {{Netherlands-cycling-bio-1960s-stub

See also

References