Dutch women's 4x400m relay wins Olympic silver; Bronze for Dutch synchronized swimmers

The Dutch 4×400 relay team won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris. Lieke Klaver, Cathelijn Peeters, Lisanne de Witte and Femke Bol had to beat the strong team of the United States in the final. Bol overtook Great Britain and Ireland in the last round and led the team to a Dutch record time of 3:19.50., the fastest time by a European quartet since 1993, European Athletics reports.

The American team included Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabrielle Thomas, Olympic champions in the 400-meter hurdles and 200-meter, respectively. The team won gold in 3:15.27. The British team took bronze.

It is the fifth Dutch athletics medal at these Games. For Bol, it is her third medal. She also won gold with the mixed relay team in the 4x400 meters and bronze in the 400-meter hurdles. Klaver was also on the gold team for the mixed relay and thus won her second medal.

Unbeatable

The relay women won the world title in Budapest last year. That performance led to the election of Sports Team of the Year for the second time in a row. New success followed in June with the European title. Klaver, Peeters, De Witte, and Bol again formed the team.

The American team was unbeatable in the Olympic final in the Stade de France and was already in the lead after the first change. Klaver, Peeters, and De Witte fought bravely for the podium, but Bol could not possibly close the big gap to the last American. However, she did rush past the British and the Irish in the last part to the finish.

Bronze: De Brouwers take first Dutch Olympic medal in synchronized swimming

Noortje and Bregje de Brouwer secured the first Dutch Olympic medal ever in synchronized swimming with bronze at the Paris Games. The 25-year-old twin sisters had to leave the silver after the technical and freestyle to the British women Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe with a tiny difference of more than a tenth. Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi from China were the convincing winners.

The De Brouwer sisters from Goirle in Brabant started the final freestyle in third place after completing a good technical routine on Friday. By combining both scores, the Dutch duo (558.3963) passed the Austrian sisters Anna-Maria and Eirini-Marina Alexandri (555.6678), but they were narrowly beaten by the British pair (558.5367).

Chinese world champion Wang convincingly took gold with 566.4783 points.

Difficulty level

The Dutch twin sisters chose an exercise with a higher degree of difficulty than their competitors to the musical composition "Van Gogh's voices". The jury awarded their fast and dynamic freestyle with the second score behind Shortman and Thorpe. However, the Wang sisters had already built up a considerable lead in the technical freestyle on Friday.

Shortman and Thorpe were the only ones in the top 5 who were not twin sisters.

Russia

The De Brouwer sisters were already the first Dutch Olympic delegation in synchronized swimming since 2008 in Tokyo three years ago. At that time, they could only achieve ninth place. But after winning European Championship titles and World Championship silver earlier this year, the twins had already become a duo to be reckoned with in Paris. In the freestyle, the De Brouwers came second in the world in February, behind the Wang twin sisters.

Historically, Russia is by far the most successful country in Olympic synchronized swimming. However, due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine, no Russians will compete in the discipline in Paris, including Svetlana Romasjina and Svetlana Kolesnichenko, the Tokyo duet champions.