Margriet Matthijsse
Margriet Matthijsse ( born April 29, 1977 in Rotterdam ) is a former Dutch sailor, two-time world champion and two-time Olympic silver medalist. 1999 started off with the International Sailing Federation (ISAF ) to the sportswoman of the year Weltseglerin (ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Awards ). The price represents the highest honor that could be given for her performance in the world of sailing a sailor, or a sailor.
Life
Margriet Matthijsse belonged in their active time at the sailing club Rotterdamsche Zeilvereeniging ( RZV ). Her achievements scored the athlete in the single-handed dinghy Europe between 1994 and 2000. In 2001 she moved to the 470 dinghy, a two-man racing dinghy with trapeze and spinnaker. In this boat, where they formed a team with Lisa Westerhof, she could not repeat her big international successes of previous years and ended after a 9th place finish at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games of Athens their athletic career.
Matthijsse committed since then, among other things Right to Play (formerly Olympic Aid ). The international development organization aims to world of war, poverty and disease affected children using games and sports programs to promote and improve their quality of life. In this capacity, she visited the Rhino Camp, a refugee camp in Uganda in 2005.
Sporting successes
At the international level, the Dane Kristine Roug counted long time to their greatest rivals. For the first time in the medal ranks sailed Matthijsse at the World Championships in 1994 in La Rochelle, when she behind Kristine Roug and the Canadian Tine Moberg Parker won the bronze medal. A year later in North Shore City, it improved by a world ranking and won the silver medal, again behind Kristine Roug. In the Sail European Championships in 1995 in Malmö, she received her first gold medal.
At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, she had to the Dane again defeated, but won in the sailing area of Savannah with the silver medal to their greatest success. At the 1997 World Championships in San Francisco, she referred Kristine Roug first to second place and became world champion. During this time, was with her compatriot Carolijn Brouwer grown another tough rival who made her difficult life at national and international level and who had already won the 1996 World Championships in Palma de Mallorca. The European Championships in 1997, she finished ahead of silver medalist Brouwer on the first place. At the 1998 World Championships in Travemünde, however, won her compatriot, while Matthijsse sailed to fourth place. 1999 in Melbourne then allowed to recover all competitors behind and won her second World Championships, as well as the European Championships before Hayling Iceland ( Hampshire).
At the World Championships in 2000 in Salvador da Bahía both Dutch girls went away empty-handed (first: Kristine Roug ). However, they won their third European Championship in Murcia, so the Dutch association, also due to the success in 1999, Margriet Matthijsse and not Carolijn Brouwer for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney nominated. In the Olympic Sailing Shore in Rushcutters Bay, the Weltseglerin of 1999 justified the nomination with her second Olympic silver medal; The gold medal went to Shirley Robertson. Still, she was very disappointed with this result, because their entire preparation and objective was focused on winning the gold medal and because she was also gone because of their pre-Olympic results as the favorite in the Olympic competition.
After changing into the 470 dinghy Margriet Matthijsse could not repeat her big successes. In this class of boat they won together with Lisa Westerhof of 2002, the silver medal at the World Championships in Cagliari and the bronze medal at the European Championships 2002 in Tallinn, the 2003 World Championships in Cadiz ended the crew on the seventh and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games of Athens in the Olympic Sailing Centre Agios Kosmas in ninth place.