Maarten van der Weijden has completed his grueling mission. The Olympic champion completed the eleven-city triathlon on Sunday morning, after being on the road for more than a week. He arrived at the Prinsentuin in Leeuwarden just before 9 a.m.
The 42-year-old swimmer had actually wanted to finish on Saturday, but decided to spend the night in Dokkum due to fatigue. From there he started the last part of his journey early Sunday morning. Along the way he got a lot of encouragement and people walked a bit with him. Afterwards he thanked everyone who supported him during his action.
Van der Weijden’s eleven-city triathlon consisted of 200 kilometers of swimming, 200 kilometers of cycling and 200 kilometers of walking, with as little sleep and rest in between as possible. He started the grueling undertaking exactly a week ago. The money raised will go to cancer research.
On the site of the event, the counter now stands at almost 1.9 million euros. That amount will be doubled by main sponsor Reggeborgh, so that more than 3.7 million euros have now been raised.
Van der Weijden, who himself was cured of leukemia, has often participated in these types of events for the fight against cancer. In 2021, for example, he raised 80,000 euros with a four-day swimming trip in a current pool. Earlier that year he did a home triathlon, in and around his own house. In June 2019, Van der Weijden swam the 200 km long Elfstedentocht in 75 hours. In 2018 he had to give up prematurely.
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