Tuesday morning a dream comes true for Lindsay van Zundert. Then she skates the short freestyle on the Olympic ice. On the way to Beijing, Lindsay received a handwritten letter from Sjoukje Dijkstra, who won Olympic gold in figure skating in 1964. “You can do it, if you just keep your head up.”
In the letter, the former Olympic champion encourages 17-year-old Lindsay from Etten-Leur. “Skate what you can and show what you can, if you succeed you can be satisfied. It doesn’t matter where you end up.”
Lindsay is very proud of Sjoukje’s letter and has had a very good relationship with Sjoukje Dijkstra for a long time, she says. “It’s so nice to have people behind you who know what it’s like to end up there at the Olympics. I look up to her a lot, of course.”