All Things Holland

I decided not to do a medal by medal count of the Dutch Olympic results for the 2014 Sochi Olympics this year. Good thing I didn't. It would have been repetitive. The 'Orange Crush' won an astonishing 23 of a possible 36 medals in Speed Skating with 3 'sweeps'. Take this into consideration. The Canadian team brought 140 athletes to Sochi and only left with 1 more medal than the Dutch who only brought 41... all they really needed was their Speed Skating team. They had twice as many medals in speed skating than all the other countries combined. In fact, it was so dominant the International Skating Union is looking at why the other countries did so poorly and is considering making changes for up coming Olympics. Speed Skating is a way of life for the Dutch. It's their unofficial sport and they backed it up finishing 4th in the total medal standings with 23 of their 24 medals coming in speed skating. The 24th was also skating... short track.

Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth these last few weeks. Class has started for both of us and it's hard to find time. Excuses Excuses. This may be a bit dry. I won't be able to put a picture up of every Olympian for the Dutch, but here is a summary of their Olympics. I'll rehash some wins I've already talked about and try to focus on the new ones. The Netherlands finished the Olympics in 13th place overall with 20 medals total. 6 Gold, 6 Silver, and 8 Bronze. A higher count than Beijing but one less Gold. Still, a good haul for the Dutch, finishing ahead of larger countries like Spain and Brazil. Medals Women's Cycling BMX - Bronze; Laura Smulders Women's Road Race - Gold; Marianne Vos Men's Cycling Track Keirin - Bronze; Teun Mulder                Keirin is a form of sprint cycling where the start is speed controlled. Read this .  Equestrian;       Women's Individual Dressage - Silver; Adelind...

I decided to wait a few days for the medals to pile up before posting an update. (If this was a blog about USA or China I wouldn't be able to keep up!) The Netherlands won 5 more medals since last I posted. 2 Golds in Swimming and 3 Bronze in other sports. Pushing their total to 8 ranking them 11th overall. Women's 8 Rowing - Bronze. Gold went to USA with Silver to Canada. I found a picture of the Dutch women's rowing team after they won. Looks like they are having fun regardless of getting 3rd. No offense to the lady in the middle but you can almost hear her snort from here. Men's 100kg Judo - Bronze (Henk Grol). Gold went to Russia, Silver to Mongolia and Netherlands tied for Bronze with Germany. Henk Grol. Sounds almost like a name from some Dan Brown novel (pictured below, chiseled). Dutch men aren't ready to be out matched in the tough guy department by the women just yet. Women's 50m and 100m Freestyle (swimming). 50m Freestyle (2 Dutchwomen Medal...

The Netherlands won another medal today in a sport that I used to put in my group of Olympic Sports that aren't televised and should be. Then I looked it up on youtube , and maybe there's a reason why it isn't aired a lot.  Judo is evidently not the fist flying craziness I thought. To me it looks more like Tai Chi sped up. Regardless, Edith Bosch (Pictured Here in the White) won a bronze medal in the Women's -70kg Judo. She had won the same medal 4 years ago in Beijing.  Continuing Holland's tradition of Women who can kick your butt.

The Olympics began with a bang (or was it Bond) last Friday night. The Dutch entered the stadium wearing their traditional Orange. Gota love those pants. Their uniforms actually won best dressed on this yahoo blog . It also seems the Dutch Women's Field Hockey team has gained worldwide attention before even taking the field to defend their Beijing Gold. Both for their play on the field and their uniforms. An article about it here  Yahoo . And a photo gallery here . Wow. The medals began coming in on Sunday for the Dutch when the Women's 4x100 Free Style Swimming Relay team secured a silver medal. Falling just behind Australia and beating team USA for second place. Followed soon after by Marianne Vos finally winning her elusive Olympic Gold Medal in Olympic Road Race Cycling. Here's a picture of her crossing the finish line (that is one excited and exhausted looking person) and one of her accepting her medal.  As of Tuesday, the Dutch are in 16 place for to...

As I type this there are 3 days, 18hrs, 33 mins, and 57 seconds left before the start of the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2008 the Netherlands won 16 medals. 7 Gold, 5 Silver, and 4 Bronze. The Golds came from; Women's Cycling Track Individual Points Race (figures), Equestrian Dressage Individual, Women's Field Hockey, Women's Lightweight Rowing, Men's Marathon Swimming, Women's Freestyle Relay Swimming, and Women's Water Polo.  Silvers; Women's Judo -57KG, (Sailing) Women's 2 person Dingh and Women's Keelboat, Equestrian Dressage Team, and Women's 8 rowing. Bronze; All came in Judo different weight classes. 2 men's and 2 women's.  What do I take from all those medals? Dutch women kick butt. I would say at least 75% of the medals won were won on women's sports. Nice. They were 12th in the total medal count that year. According to the official BBC website, it looks like around 182 athletes will be competing in sp...

The London Olympic Games begin in less than 43 days. I thought it would be appropriate to break down which sports the Netherlands will be competing it. Here's the breakdown. -Archery -Track and Field;         Discus, heptathlon, marathon, shot put, decathlon, hurdles, various sprints -Badminton (I didn't know that's how it's spelled!)     Interestingly their athlete in this is Jie Yao who now resides in Holland. The competetion level in China is so great, she moved to the Netherlands to have a better chance of making the olympics. -Cycling    BMX, road, track, mountain biking -Equestrian    Dressage, eventing, jumping -Fencing -Field Hockey -Gymnastics     Trampoline, artistic -Judo -Rowing -Sailing -Shooting -Swimming -Table Tennis (similar story to Badminton) -Taekwondo -Triathlon Some of those sports never get televised. It'd be interesting to see. Especailly table tennis or...

With the 2012 Olympic games a little under 200 days away (It officially kicks off in London July 27 2012, I'm super excited!) I thought it would be neat to learn about how Holland has faired at previous Olympic games. The picture above is of the Dutch team walking into opening ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Nice ties! The Netherlands have consistently sent competitors to each games since the year 1900 (Except for a boycott in 1956). They were the host in 1928 and are interested in hosting again in 2028. A bicentennial of sorts. Dutch athletes have won 246 medals at the summer games mostly in swimming and cycling; and 86 medals at the winter games of which 82 came from speed skating. Looking through their wikipedia medal count; The Netherlands top sports include; speed skating (which is a crazy passion of the country, more on that in another post I think), swimming, cycling, and equestrian rounding out the top 4. These also being their most widely recognized sports of ...