Bart Veldkamp

Bart Veldkamp (born 22 November 1967 in The Hague, Netherlands) is a retired speed skater, who represented both the Netherlands and Belgium in international competitions, including the Winter Olympics.

hort biography

In 1990, Bart Veldkamp won the European Allround Championships and came very close to repeating that feat 11 years later in 2001, finishing 2nd. At the 1992 Winter Olympics, he won a gold medal on the 10,000 m. Mainly due to this achievement, Veldkamp was named Dutch Sportsman of the Year in 1992. Before the 1994 Winter Olympics, he was so dissatisfied with the way to qualify for tournaments that he became a Belgian. In Belgium there was (and still is) no speed skating tradition, so qualifying for tournaments became no issue because there were no other speed skaters to compete with.

In Lillehammer at the 1994 Winter Olympics, Veldkamp won a bronze medal on the 10,000 m for the Netherlands. The next Olympic medal he won was as a Belgian at the 1998 Winter Olympics on the 5,000 m, in which he was the first skater ever to break the 6:30 barrier on that distance, but his time was beaten later that same day by former compatriots Rintje Ritsma and Gianni Romme. His bronze medal was the first ever Olympic medal in speed skating for Belgium.

In 1997, Veldkamp participated in the Elfstedentocht. In 2003, he announced that the 2006 Winter Olympics at Turin would be his third Winter Olympics as a Belgian, his fifth overall, and definitely his last. At these 2006 Winter Olympics, Veldkamp finished 13th on the 5,000 m and 14th on the 10,000 m and ended his career afterwards.

After his career Veldkamp became a sports journalist for the NOS to analyze speed skating races. He also appeared on several other tv shows as Peking Express and Wildebeesten.

In the 2006/2007 winter season Veldkamp trained four Kenyan athletes, for the first time ever on ice, for a Dutch TV show. The goal was to let them skate the 200km long alternative Elfstedentocht at the Weissensee in Austria.

Medals

An overview of medals won by Veldkamp at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:

Veldkamp has an Adelskalender score of 152.621 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a 5th place.

External links and references

* [http://www.skateresults.com/skater/show/1141 Bart Veldkamp at SkateResults.com]
* [http://www.skatebase.com Personal records from "The Skatebase"]
* [http://web.telia.com/~u46130641/seas99.htm 2005/2006 season best performances]
* [http://www.fotos.desg.de/athletes.php?showAthletes=all&id=365 Photos of Bart Veldkamp]