Gerard van Velde

Gerard van Velde

Personal information
Born	30 November 1971[1] Wapenveld, Netherlands[1]
Height	1.92 m (6 ft 4 in)[1]
Weight	87 kg (192 lb)[1]
Sport
Country	Netherlands
Sport	Speed skating
Turned pro	1990
Retired	2008
Medal record Men's speed skating Representing the  Netherlands Olympic Games 2002 Salt Lake City 1000 m World Championships 2003 Berlin 1000 m 2003 Calgary Sprint

Gerard Pieter Hendrik van Velde (born 30 November 1971) is a Dutch retired speed skater who specialised in sprinting. He won an Olympic gold medal in 2002.

Biography

van Velde was considered the best Dutch sprinter during the early 1990s, but did not manage to win a medal in either the 1992 or 1994 Winter Olympics. The 1992 Games were particularly frustrating, as he missed a bronze medal by only one-hundredth of a second.

During the late 1990s, clap skates became standard in Olympic competition. Van Velde had such difficulty adjusting to the techniques required with these new skates that he retired from skating and became a car salesman. However, he was not finished with the skating world.

Rintje Ritsma, another Dutch skater invited van Velde to be his training partner, and, during training, he mastered the clap skate techniques. He decided to try out for the 2002 Winter Olympics, in spite of the arrival of a new generation of Dutch sprinters such as Jan Bos, Erben Wennemars and Jakko Jan Leeuwangh. Van Velde became the fourth sprinter to qualify for the games.

In Salt Lake City, he started before all the other favorites and raced to a world record finish with a time of 1:07.18. This time he shaved more than half a second from the previous best world time, and more than a second from his personal best. The skaters who followed were unable to best him, and he won the gold medal.

In December 2005, at the Dutch Olympic trials in Heerenveen, van Velde failed to qualify for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. In retirement he became a coach.^[1]

Records

Personal records

Personal records
Men's speed skating
Event	Result	Date	Location	Notes
500 m	34.59	6 February 2003	Calgary
1000 m	1:07.18	16 February 2002	Salt Lake City	OR
1500 m	1:48.53	26 September 2004	Calgary
3000 m	4:02.18	30 November 2004	Calgary

Source: SpeedskatingResults.com^[2]

World records

Event	Time	Date	Venue
1000 m	1:07.18	16 February 2002	Salt Lake City

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com^[3]

References

1. "Gerard van Velde". sports-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
2. "Gerard van Velde". SpeedskatingResults.com. Retrieved 29 August 2012.
3. "Gerard van Velde". SpeedSkatingStats.com. Retrieved 29 August 2012.

External links

• Gerard van Velde at SpeedSkatingStats.com
• Photos of Gerard van Velde