Sharon van Rouwendaal (born 9 September 1993) is a Dutch

swimmer Swimming is an individual or team racing sport that requires the use of one's entire body to move through water. The sport takes place in pools or open water (e.g., in a sea or lake). Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic ...

and the Olympic gold medalist in the 10 km open water marathon at the

2016 Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro ...

in Rio de Janeiro. She grew up in Soest, and later moved to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

with her parents. In 2009, she moved to

Eindhoven Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,2010 European Aquatics Championships The 2010 European Aquatics Championships were held from 4–15 August 2010 in Budapest and Balatonfüred, Hungary. It was the fourth time that the city of Budapest hosts this event after 1926, 1958 and 2006. Events in swimming, diving, synchroni ...

she changed coach to

Jacco Verhaeren Jacco Verhaeren (born April 4, 1969 in Rijsbergen) is a Dutch swimming coach and manager. He is best known for guiding Pieter van den Hoogenband, Inge de Bruijn, and Ranomi Kromowidjojo to multiple Olympic gold medals, and for leading significant ...

. As of 2014 she is coached by Philippe Lucas in Narbonne and

Marcel Wouda Marcel Reinier Wouda (born 23 January 1972) is a former Dutch swimmer, who became the first Dutch world champion in men's swimming when he won the world title in the 200 m individual medley at the 1998 World Aquatics Championships in Per ...

in Eindhoven. She is noted for her versatility, and focuses on distance freestyle events. In a country known for its sprinters, she is the only elite distance swimmer. She has won several medals at European and world championships, both in open water and pool events.

Junior career

Van Rouwendaal won four medals in middle- and long-distance freestyle events at the 2008 European Junior Championships in Belgrade, including a gold medal in the 1500 meter in a Dutch senior record (long course). A year later, she won a gold medal at the 2009 European Junior Championships in Prague in the 400 meter freestyle.

Senior career

Van Rouwendaal made her senior debut at the 2008 European Short Course Championships in Rijeka. Two years later, at the 2010 European Short Course Championships in Eindhoven, she made her international breakthrough by winning two silver medals, in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke. She finished in fifth place at the 2010 world short course championships in Dubai in the 200 meter backstroke a few weeks later. At the

2011 World Aquatics Championships The 14th FINA World Championships () were held on 16–31 July 2011 in Shanghai, China at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The 2011 World Championships featured five aquatics disciplines: swimming, water polo, diving, open water, and synchro ...

in Shanghai she won the bronze medal in the 200 m backstroke behind

Missy Franklin Melissa Franklin Johnson (born May 10, 1995) is an American former competition swimmer and five-time Olympic gold medalist. She formerly held the world record in the 200-meter backstroke (long course). As a member of the U.S. national swim team ...

and

Belinda Hocking Belinda Hocking is a retired Australian backstroke swimmer. She is an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder. Career Hocking was fifth in the 200-metre back and sixth in the 50 and 100m back at the Telstra Australian Swimming Cha ...

2012 Olympics

The

2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in London were Van Rouwendaal's first Olympics. She competed individually in the

100 m backstroke 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

and 200 m backstroke but due to a shoulder injury she did not make the finals. In the 200 meter backstroke event she finished 11th in the semifinals. In the 4 × 100 m medley relay she did swim the final, finishing 6th with the Dutch team. Van Rouwendaal (swimming the backstroke lead-off leg) and her teammates

Moniek Nijhuis Moniek Nijhuis (born 20 March 1988) is a Dutch swimmer who specializes in breaststroke. After she had been a professional swimmer, under the guidance of Martin Truijens, for several years she took a break from professional swimming after she mis ...

(breaststroke),

Inge Dekker Inge Dekker (born 18 August 1985) is a Dutch former competitive swimmer who specialised in butterfly and freestyle events. She won the bronze medal with the Dutch women's 4×100-metre freestyle relay team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, ...

(butterfly), and Ranomi Kromowidjojo (freestyle) broke the Dutch record in this event. Her shoulder injury caused her to miss the

2013 World Aquatics Championships The 15th FINA World Championships ( ca, Campionat Mundial de Natació de 2013, es, Campeonato Mundial de Natación de 2013) were held from 20 July to 4 August in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.2014 European Aquatics Championships The 2014 European Aquatics Championships took place from 13 to 24 August 2014 in Berlin, Germany. It was the 31st edition of the championships, and was held in a temporary facility placed in the centre of the Berlin Velodrome. Great Britain head ...

in Berlin, Van Rouwendaal won the gold medal in the

10 km 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

open water, upsetting reigning Olympic champion

Éva Risztov Éva Risztov (; born 30 August 1985) is a Hungarian Olympic gold medalist female swimmer. She won four silver medals at the 2002 European Aquatics Championships and three silver medals at the 2003 World Aquatics Championships. She won a furt ...

of Hungary by 1.1 seconds. This was her first gold medal in a major international championship. With her teammates

Marcel Schouten Marcel may refer to: People * Marcel (given name), people with the given name Marcel * Marcel (footballer, born August 1981), Marcel Silva Andrade, Brazilian midfielder * Marcel (footballer, born November 1981), Marcel Augusto Ortolan, Brazilian s ...

and Ferry Weertman she won another gold medal in the 5 km team time trial. She also won the silver medal in the

5 km 5 km may refer to: *5K run The 5K run is a long-distance road running competition over a distance of . Also referred to as the 5K road race, 5 km, or simply 5K, it is the shortest of the most common road running distances. It is usually dis ...

, and another silver in the 400 meter freestyle in the pool behind Britain's

Jazmin Carlin Jazmin Roxy "Jazz" Carlin (born 17 September 1990) is a former British competitive swimmer, who previously represented Wales and the Great Britain swimming team. She competed primarily in endurance freestyle events, and was based at the Univer ...

. She finished 5th in the

800 m freestyle 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

final and missed the final of the

1500 m freestyle Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music *Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak album ...

by finishing 9th in the heats. She also competed in the 200 m butterfly but did not qualify for the semifinals. Van Rouwendaal was voted 2014 European Open water swimmer of the year by European swimming federation

LEN Len or LEN may refer to: People and fictional characters * Len (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Lén, a character from Irish mythology * Alex Len (born 1993), Ukrainian basketball player * Mr. Len, American hip hop DJ *Le ...

2014 World Championships (short course)

Later in the year she won her first world title as a member of the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay at the short course world championships in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the coun ...

, Qatar. The team (also consisting of

Femke Heemskerk Frederike Johanna Maria "Femke" Heemskerk (; born 21 September 1987) is a former Dutch competitive swimmerRanomi Kromowidjojo) broke China's four year old

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

by more than 3 seconds with Van Rouwendaal splitting 1:52.73. She also won individual medals in the 400 m and 800 m freestyle.

2015 World Championships

Kazan 2015 - Victory Ceremony 400m freestyle W

At the

2015 World Aquatics Championships The 16th FINA World Aquatics Championships, FINA World Championships (russian: Чемпионат мира по водным видам спорта 2015), also Aquatics 2015, were held in Kazan, Russia from 24 July to 9 August 2015. Russia host ...

Kazan Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering a ...

, Russia, Van Rouwendaal again competed both in the open water and pool events. In the open water events she won two silver medals. In the individual

she finished 2.4 seconds behind

Aurélie Muller Aurélie Muller (born 7 June 1990) is a French swimmer, who specializes in long-distance freestyle events and open water marathon. She won the 10-kilometer competition at the 2015 world championship in Kazan, Russia and at the 2017 world champion ...

of France for second place. By finishing in the top 10, she qualified for the 10 km marathon event at the

in Rio de Janeiro. In the 5 km team time trial she and her teammates

and Ferry Weertman finished in tied second place. She also finished 4th in the individual

. In the pool, Van Rouwendaal won the silver medal in the 400 meter freestyle behind defending champion and world record holder

Katie Ledecky Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky (born March 17, 1997) is an American competitive swimmer. She has won seven Olympic gold medals and 19 world championship gold medals, the most in history for a female swimmer. Ledecky's six individual gold medals at ...

, who had dominated this event since 2013. In this race she broke the Dutch record with a time of 4:03.02. In the heats of the

, she also broke her own national record. She broke her record again in the final but finished in 8th place. In the

she finished 6th.

2016 European Open Water Championships

At the 10 km event at the European Open Water Championships in

Hoorn Hoorn () is a city and municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the largest town and the traditional capital of the region of West Friesland. Hoorn is located on the Markermeer, 20 kilometers ( ...

, the Netherlands, Van Rouwendaal missed a turn near the finish while in leading position. She ended up finishing 4th. Two days later she won a bronze medal in the 5 km event.

2016 Summer Olympics

At the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

in Rio de Janeiro, Van Rouwendaal missed the final of the

400 m freestyle 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

, finishing 19th in the heats. She subsequently pulled out of the 800 m freestyle, and later won the gold medal in the 10 km marathon at

Fort Copacabana Fort Copacabana ( pt, Forte de Copacabana, ) is a military base at the south end of the beach that defines the district of Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The base is open to the public and contains the ''Museu Histórico do Exército'' (Army Historic ...

in 1:56:32.1. After 6 km she broke away from the field, and finished 17 seconds ahead of silver medalist

Rachele Bruni Rachele Bruni (born 4 November 1990) is an Italian swimmer, specialising in open water long-distance races. She won the silver medal in the 10 km marathon at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in 10 km open ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rouwendaal, Sharon van 1993 births Living people Dutch female freestyle swimmers Dutch female backstroke swimmers Female long-distance swimmers Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic swimmers of the Netherlands World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming European Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming People from Baarn World record holders in swimming World Aquatics Championships medalists in open water swimming Medalists at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the Netherlands Olympic gold medalists in swimming Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic silver medalists for the Netherlands Sportspeople from Utrecht (province)