Two -time Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal stops open water swimming. The 31-year-old swimmer announced this on Friday evening in talk show RTL Tonight. Van Rouwendaal is one of the most successful athletes in her discipline. She won gold at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in 2016 and Paris in 2024. In addition, the swimmer became world champion in the 10 kilometer open water three times.
The open water swimmer had been considering putting an end to her career for a long time, she says. After her Olympic title in Paris, Van Rouwendaal already seemed a good moment to stop, but she still went on for a year. “Since I was at the World Cup two months ago and I didn’t miss it, I know it is good,” says Van Rouwendaal in RTL Tonight.
The swimmer tells in the evening program that she had to make a lot of sacrifices for top sport. “You have a lot of injuries and you have to do everything for it. As a 13-year-old girl I left home and now I have almost 32. I gave eighteen years of my life to swim.” The top sports star trained seven hours a day and suffered a lot from pain and injuries, she says. “I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve and missed my parents and family a lot. Now I live with them in the same street.”
In August last year NRC The top sports star extensively about the sacrifices that her career required. Van Rouwendaal emphasized how much she saw the Dutch swimming culture change. “I think it’s a shame that much of what used to be normal in the Netherlands is no longer possible,” said the Olympic champion at the time.
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Openwater swimmer Sharon van Rouwendaal: ‘I think it is a shame that much of what used to be normal in the Netherlands is no longer possible’