Thijs van Valkengoed

Personal information

Full name

Thijs Maarten van Valkengoed

Nationality

Netherlands

Born

July 6, 1983
Lelystad

Height

1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)

Sport

Swimming

Strokes

Breaststroke

Club

AZ&PC

Medal record

Men's Swimming
Competitor for the Netherlands
European Championships (SC)
	2003 Dublin	200 m breaststroke

Thijs Maarten van Valkengoed (born July 6, 1983 in Lelystad, Flevoland) is a breaststroke swimmer from the Netherlands, who competed for his native country at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece and the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He trains together with his sister Jolijn in their hometown.

Swimming career

Thijs debuted at the international stage during the 2002 European Aquatics Championships in Berlin. Van Valkengoed's main achievement is winning the bronze medal in the 200 m breaststroke at the European Short Course Swimming Championships 2003 in Dublin, Ireland. Earlier that month he had qualified himself for the 2004 Summer Olympics with national records in 100 m and 200 m breaststroke. At the Olympics he was eliminated in the semi finals of the 100 m breaststroke, and in the heats of the 200 m breaststroke.

Overtraining

After the disappointing results in Montreal at the 2005 World Aquatics Championships it appeared that Thijs had been overtraining himself for a longer period of time. He had to rest for the whole 2006 season.

Comeback

After his overtraining he decided to move back from Amsterdam to Lelystad and started to train with his sister with the goal to qualify themselves for the 2008 European Aquatics Championships in Eindhoven. At the end of 2007 both Thijs and Jolijn van Valkengoed reached their goal and qualified for the European Championship in their homecountry. During the European championships Thijs lowered his own national record at the 100 m breaststroke to 1:01.22 and instead qualified for his second Olympics. Later on his sister qualified herself for the medley relay at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Just days before the Games started, during the training-camp in Hong Kong, Thijs became ill. Due to the illness Thijs couldn't lower his national record again.

Personal bests

Short course^[1]^[2]
Event	Time	Date	Location
50 m breaststroke	28.20	2008-04-12	Manchester, United Kingdom
100 m breaststroke	59.76	2008-04-09	Manchester, United Kingdom
200 m breaststroke	2:08.30 NR	2003-12-14	Dublin, Ireland

Long course^[1]^[2]
Event	Time	Date	Location
50 m breaststroke	28.51	2008-03-22	Eindhoven, Netherlands
100 m breaststroke	1:01.22	2008-03-18	Eindhoven, Netherlands
200 m breaststroke	2:13.32	2003-12-04	Federal Way, USA

References

1 2 Thijs van Valkengoed. Zwemkroniek Online. Retrieved on 2008-09-07.
1 2 Thijs at swimrankings.net

Dutch Olympic Committee

2004 Dutch Olympic Swimming Team

Men's competition	Pieter van den Hoogenband Joris Keizer Johan Kenkhuis Thijs van Valkengoed Mark Veens Mitja Zastrow Klaas-Erik Zwering

Women's competition	Madelon Baans Inge de Bruijn Inge Dekker Chantal Groot Annabel Kosten Celina Lemmen Stefanie Luiken Haike van Stralen Marleen Veldhuis

2008 Dutch Olympic Swimming Team

Men's competition	Robin van Aggele Nick Driebergen Pieter van den Hoogenband Robert Lijesen Thijs van Valkengoed Bas van Velthoven Maarten van der Weijden Mitja Zastrow

Women's competition	Linda Bank Inge Dekker Edith van Dijk Chantal Groot Femke Heemskerk Saskia de Jonge Ranomi Kromowidjojo Manon van Rooijen Hinkelien Schreuder Jolijn van Valkengoed Marleen Veldhuis

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