Hilbert van der Duim

Hilbert van der Duim

Personal information
Nationality	Dutch
Born	(1957-08-04) 4 August 1957 (age 59) Beetsterzwaag, Netherlands
Sport
Country	Netherlands
Sport	Speed skating
Turned pro	1979
Retired	1987
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	500 m: 37.70 (1982) 1000 m: 1:15.80 (1981) 1500 m: 1:57.57 (1985) 3000 m: 4:06.59 (1983) 5000 m: 6:59.73 (1982) 10 000 m: 14:27.81 (1982)
Medal record Representing the  Netherlands Men's Speed Skating World Championships 1980 Heerenveen Allround 1982 Assen Allround 1984 Gothenburg Allround 1985 Hamar Allround 1983 Helsinki Sprint European Championships 1983 The Hague Allround 1984 Larvik Allround 1981 Deventer Allround 1982 Oslo Allround Dutch Allround Championships 1979 Heerenveen Allround 1980 Den Haag Allround 1981 Assen Allround 1982 Heerenveen Allround 1983 Deventer Allround 1984 Groningen Allround 1985 Alkmaar Allround 1978 Eindhoven Allround Dutch Sprint Championships 1983 Utrecht Sprint 1985 Utrecht Sprint Dutch Marathon Championships 1987 Eernewoude Natural Ice

Hilbert van der Duim (born 4 August 1957) is a Dutch former speed skater. A two-time world and European champion, Van der Duim "won often but also fell often", and has become famous for some of the incidents that happened to him during his career.

Hilbert van der Duim became World Allround Champion in 1980, being the first skater in four years to beat Eric Heiden in international competition. He became World Allround Champion again in 1982. He also was European Allround Champion twice (in 1983 and 1984) and became Dutch Allround Champion a record number of seven times, winning seven consecutive national allround titles in the years 1979-1985.

He participated in the Winter Olympics, twice (in 1980 and 1984), but his highest finish was fourth place in the 5,000 meters in 1980 in Lake Placid. In 1986, Van der Duim switched to marathon skating and impressed by his high skating speed. On 28 November 1986, he became World Hour Record holder, skating 39,492.80 metres in one hour. He was forced to end his skating career when he was involved in a severe automobile accident in 1987, driving home after a marathon.

Van der Duim was of the last generation of skaters before the commercialization of the sport in the Netherlands; the Dutch skating league had such strict rules against advertising, for instance, that Van der Duim was threatened with expulsion after he appeared on television with the name of a sponsor on his hat. After his skating career, Van der Duim became a teacher, teaching economics at Drenthe College, and in the late 1990s he was also active in local politics, taking a seat on the city council of Assen for a populist party.

Van der Duim also gained fame as a colourful skater because of several "incidents". At the European Allround Championships in 1981, he fell on the 10,000 m and finished this distance in a time of 15:28.53 (for comparison: during the European Championships the year before, he had skated a time of 15:06.29). His fall probably cost him the title – he won European Allround silver 0.728 points (equivalent to 14.56 seconds on the 10,000 m) behind Amund Sjøbrend. After his 10,000 m race, Van der Duim explained that skating over "bird poop" had made him fall, causing widespread speculation in the Dutch popular press over the nature of the bird. Later, Van der Duim admitted there had been no excrement, but the episode has come to stand for any unexplained failure in Dutch sports.

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Wikipedia