Maarten van der Weijden

Maarten van der Weijden (born 31 March 1981) is a Dutch former long-distance and marathon swimmer born in Alkmaar. Van der Weijden won the Olympic gold in the 10 km open water marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In 2019, he swam the Elfstedentocht for charity, in which he raised more than €6.1 million.

Swimming career Van der Weijden was known as a promising swimming talent in his youth, becoming Dutch national champion in the 1500 m freestyle (1998 (short course and long course), 1999 (lc) and 2000 (lc)), 400 m freestyle (1999 (sc+lc) and 2000 (lc)) and 5 km open water (2000). He also participated at the 1999 European Junior Championships and the 2000 Open Water World Championships. In 2001, he was confronted with leukemia and his career was likely to be over. After surviving cancer, he made his comeback in 2003.

On 22–23 May 2017, in Amsterdam, Van der Weijden attempted to break the world record for 24 hours swimming. He finished the nonstop swimming marathon, but he did not succeed in breaking the world record of 102 kilometers. He completed 99.5 kilometers in 24 hours. With this achievement he collected €8,500 for the benefit of cancer research. In March 2018 he tried to break the world record again: he succeeded by swimming 102.8 kilometers in 24 hours.

Elfstedentocht In August 2018, Van der Weijden started an attempt to swim the entire track of the Elfstedentocht, a famous 200 km outdoor ice skating race in the north of the Netherlands. The purpose of this event was to raise funds for cancer research. Sponsors were invited to swim along with him for portions of the distance. The day before the event, the organizers and health experts concluded that due to E. coli the water quality was too poor for the sponsors to swim; Van der Weijden decided to make his attempt, without the sponsors swimming along. He scheduled this attempt to take three days, while only taking short naps - but taking slightly longer (three hour) breaks was necessary to continue. The attempt was live streamed by the national broadcaster NOS on their website and closely followed in national news. Eventually, with less than 10 km left to Dokkum, he had to cut his attempt short due to illness sustained in the water. At that moment, he already had swum a distance of 163 km in 55 hours time raising over €4,3 million for cancer charities. By October the total had reached €5 million.

On 27 March 2019 Van der Weijden announced that on 21 June 2019 he would start a second attempt to swim the whole eleven-city tour. His second attempt turned out to be successful. Van der Weijden arrived after 74 hours and 4 minutes at the finish in Leeuwarden on 24 June 2019. By the end of his swim, he had raised €3,910,763.11 for cancer charities. By the next day, 25 June, it was announced that €5.1 million had come in. On 28 June the total had reached over €6.1 million.

In June 2023 he was the second person to do the "Elfsteden" track as a triathlon. First swimming the total 200 km, followed by 200 km cycling and finally the 200 km walking, again raising money for cancer research.

Electoral history

+ YearBodyPartyVotesResult.Party seatsIndividual 2017 House of Representatives People's Party for Freedom and Democracy 80 2,217 33 2021 House of Representatives People's Party for Freedom and Democracy 80 4,116 34 2023 House of Representatives People's Party for Freedom and Democracy 80 3,657 24