Willy den Ouden

Willy den Ouden

Dutch relay team at 1934 European Championships, with den Ouden in front
Personal information
Full name	Willemijntje den Ouden
Nickname(s)	"Willy"
National team	Netherlands
Born	(1918-01-01)1 January 1918 Rotterdam, Netherlands
Died	6 December 1997(1997-12-06) (aged 79) Rotterdam, Netherlands
Height	1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Sport
Sport	Swimming
Strokes	Freestyle
Club	RDZ, Rotterdam
Coach	Pee van Wuijckhuise
Medal record Women's swimming Representing the Netherlands Summer Olympics 1936 Berlin 4×100 m freestyle 1932 Los Angeles 100 m freestyle 1932 Los Angeles 4×100 m freestyle European Championships 1931 Paris 4×100 m freestyle 1934 Magdeburg 100 m freestyle 1934 Magdeburg 4×100 m freestyle 1931 Paris 100 m freestyle 1934 Magdeburg 400 m freestyle 1938 London 4×100 m freestyle

Willemijntje den Ouden (1 January 1918 – 6 December 1997) was a competitive swimmer from the Netherlands, who held the 100-meter freestyle world record for nearly 23 years, from 1933 to 1956.

Den Ouden was a daughter of Willemijntje Kuipers and Antonius Victor Jozephus den Ouden, a café owner in Rotterdam, a town that was then the swimming center of the Netherlands. in 1931, at the age of 13, she became the Rotterdamsche Dames Zwemclub ("Rotterdam's Ladies Swimming Club") champion in her favorite discipline, 100m freestyle and broke the Dutch national record on that distance by 1.4 seconds with a time of 1:10.4.[1] A year later, Den Ouden came in the international limelight when she participated at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and won two of the five contestable silver medals in swimming. In the series, she also broke the Olympic record on the 100 m. These accomplishments attracted wide attention since as a 14-year old she was also the youngest Olympic participant. Four years later at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, she was widely favored to win the same race, but came in fourth place in the final. She did win the gold medal in the women's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay with her compatriots Tini Wagner, Rie Mastenbroek and Jopie Selbach.

However, the diminutive Den Ouden -she reached 1.55 m (5.1 ft)- was far more successful between these two Olympic games. At the 1934 European Championships in Magdeburg she won all three contests she participated in, though her shared win at the 400 m race with Rie Mastenbroek led only to a silver medal when she refused to swim the race again to decide a winner. On July 9, 1933 in Antwerp, she broke Helene Madison's two-year-old world record on the 100 m freestyle, setting it at 1:06.0. She would improve on this three times, swimming 1:04.8 in April 1934 and finally reaching 1:04.6 on 27 February 1936 in Amsterdam. This record would last until 1956 when it was broken twice within ten days by Dawn Fraser and Cocky Gastelaars, respectively. Thus, she held the world record for the top event in swimming for an unequalled 22 years and 8 months.