Biography

My Story

In 2015, I spend a lot of time to motor cross. Every weekend, my father and I drove all over the Netherlands for races. In that same period, I started my triathlon adventure.

My father has been swimming at a triathlon club for a large part of his life. To improve my condition and lose some weight, I wanted to swim as well. At the time, I weighed 100+ kg and I was in a bad condition. After a while, I started to get more and more pleasure in training and lost 25 kg in half an year. I also felt much fitter. Moreover, I found out that I not only enjoy swimming, but that I also have a talent for swimming. I also started cycling and running. This was the starting point for my triathlon career.

Every year, a local triathlon is organized in my hometown, Nieuwe-Niedorp. My first local competitions were in a team and I only did the swimming part. Through these triathlons, I came in contact with Eric van der Linden. In 2016, I started training under the guidance of Eric van der Linden. I made a lot of progress in a short period of time. The first few years of my triathlon career, were about learning and training. In 2017, I participated in my first Dutch Junior Championship and in 2018, I participated in my first half distance triathlon. Eric and I soon found out that my specialty are longer distances. At that point, I was already training for 25 hours a week and it became difficult to combine it with my study, Commercial Economics. In 2019, I finally took the plunge and decided to quit my studies in order to fully focus on triathlon. I started training more and had more time left to rest. Next to that, I regularly go to training camps and training courses abroad. Currently, I still train under supervision of Eric van der Linden.

The year 2019, was a good year where I made a lot of progress and I discovered that I have talent for triathlon on the longer distances. Since, then my full focus has been on the longer  distances. Since 2020, I can officially call myself a professional triathlete and I compete all over the world. My biggest dream is competing in Ironman Hawaii.