Yvonne van Gennip biography
Yvonne van Gennip, (born May 1, 1964, Haarlem, Netherlands), Dutch athlete who was thought of the best velocity skater from the Netherlands since Ard Schenk. She gained three Olympic gold medals in 1988.
At the beginning of the 1988 Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a lot of the eye within the ladies’s speed-skating competitors was centered on the East German crew, which had dominated on the earlier Olympics, capturing 9 of the 12 medals within the sport. Van Gennip, a former medical scholar, had gained the 1,500-metre and the three,000-metre World Cup titles in 1987, however foot surgical procedure a number of months previous to the Games had lessened her hopes of a medal at Calgary. However, she turned in a shocking efficiency, capturing the gold medals within the 1,500-, 3,000-, and 5,000-metre races, all in Olympic file occasions. In the 5,000-metre occasion van Gennip additionally set a world file (7 min 14.13 sec), ending an unimaginable 2.99 seconds forward of Andrea Mitscherlich-Ehrig, who had earlier set a world file. Van Gennip credited American Bonnie Blair’s defeat of the East Germans within the 500-metre occasion as her inspiration.
Van Gennip achieved star standing within the Netherlands, with some 60,000 followers turning out to welcome her house. She competed on the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, however didn't earn a medal.