Frederike Johanna Maria "Femke" Heemskerk (; born 21 September 1987) is a former Dutch competitive

swimmer Swimming is an individual or team racing sport that requires the use of one's entire body to move through water. The sport takes place in pools or open water (e.g., in a sea or lake). Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic ...

Femke Heemskerk
Zwemkroniek Online. Retrieved on 19 March 2008. who mainly specializes in freestyle, but also has a strong backstroke and medley. As part of the Dutch team, she holds the short course

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organizatio ...

in the 4 × 50 m freestyle relay and formerly the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, and 4×200 m freestyle relay, all set at the World Championships in

Doha Doha ( ) is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor (city), Al Khor and Lusail, it is home to most of the country's population. It ...

in 2014. Individually, she has broken

national records National Records was a record label that was started in New York City by Albert Green in 1945 and lasted until early 1951. Big Joe Turner was signed at the beginning and remained until 1947. Billy Eckstine was also a big seller for the label as ...

in six events, four in

long course An Olympic-size swimming pool is a swimming pool which conforms to the regulations for length, breadth, and depth made by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) for swimming at the Summer Olympics and the swimming events at the World Aquatics Champion ...

, 100 m and 200 m freestyle, 100 m backstroke, and 200 m individual medley, and two in short course, 200 m freestyle and 200 m individual medley. She represented Energy Standard in the

International Swimming League The International Swimming League (ISL) was an annual professional swimming league, established in 2019. It features a team-based competition format with fast-paced race sessions. In 2019, the regular season started in October and the Final Match ...

Swimming career

Early career

Femke Heemskerk made her international debut at the World LC Championships 2005 in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

as a relay-swimmer. She only swum in the heats of the 4×100 m freestyle and the 4×200 m freestyle events. She competed in the European LC Championships 2006 and the

European Short Course Swimming Championships The European Short Course Swimming Championships, variously referred to informally as the "Short Course Europeans" or "European 25m Championships", are a swimming meet, organized by LEN. The meet features swimmers from Europe, competing in event ...

. But individually she did not advance past the heats in both events. At the World LC Championships 2007 she won a bronze medal in the 4×100 m freestyle together with

Inge Dekker Inge Dekker (born 18 August 1985) is a Dutch former competitive swimmer who specialised in butterfly and freestyle events. She won the bronze medal with the Dutch women's 4×100-metre freestyle relay team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, ...

Ranomi Kromowidjojo Ranomi Kromowidjojo (; born 20 August 1990) is a retired Dutch swimmer of mixed Dutch-Javanese Surinamese origin who mainly specialises in sprint freestyle events. She is a triple Olympic champion, winning the gold medal in the 4 × 100 m fre ...

and

Marleen Veldhuis Magdalena Johanna Maria "Marleen" Veldhuis (born 29 June 1979) is a retired swimmer from the Netherlands. She was world record holder in four events (one individual event and three relay events). Veldhuis won eight world championships gold medal ...

. At the

2007 European Short Course Swimming Championships The 2007 European Short Course Swimming Championships, which was the 15th edition of the continental swimming event, were held between 13 and 16 December 2007 in Debrecen, Hungary. The championships were swum in the Debrecen Swimming Pool Complex ...

Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...

she surprisingly finished 6th in her first international final, the 100 m freestyle. She also finished 10th in the 200 m freestyle.

Spring 2008

In 2008 she swam at the

2008 European Aquatics Championships The 2008 LEN European Aquatics Championships were held in Eindhoven, Netherlands, from 13–24 March 2008. They were the European championships for swimming (50 m), diving and synchronised swimming for 2008. Two new events were contested: ...

on the world record breaking 4×100 m freestyle team, which also won bronze in the World Championships the year before. With the same team she ended fourth in the 4×200 m freestyle relay. Individually she did not reach the semi-finals. The next month she competed in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

at the World SC Championships 2008 where she again broke two relay records in the 4×200 m freestyle with the same team as in Eindhoven. In the 4×100 m freestyle

Hinkelien Schreuder Hinkelien Schreuder (born 13 February 1984) is a former butterfly, freestyle and backstroke swimmer from The Netherlands, who also competed in the medley events. Schreuder won the Olympic gold medal in the 4×100 freestyle relay at the 2008 Oly ...

replaced

who suffered from an elbow injury. She won her first individual medal, a silver medal, in the 200 m freestyle at the last day of the tournament. During the National Championships in June 2008, Heemskerk lowered three national records on the long course, 200 m freestyle, 200 m individual medley and 100 m backstroke.

2008 Summer Olympics

At the

2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fro ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

she won a gold medal with the 4×100 m freestyle relay. She did so alongside

and

in a time of 3:33.76, just 0.14 outside their own world record. The day after she competed individually in the 200 m individual medley where she finished 28th during the heats. Heemskerk was the lead-off swimmer in both 4×200 m freestyle and 4×100 m medley relays, both of which did not qualify for the finals.

Fall 2008

After the Olympics Heemskerk returned to competition at the

where she qualified for the

2009 World Aquatics Championships The 2009 World Aquatics Championships () or the XIII FINA World Championships were held in Rome, Italy from 18 July to 2 August 2009. This was the second time the championships were held in the city after being previously hosted in 1994 World Aq ...

in the

100 m The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at ...

and 200 m freestyle. The week afterwards she participated in the

2008 European Short Course Swimming Championships The European Short Course Swimming Championships 2008 took place in Rijeka, Croatia from 11 to 14 December 2008. Medal table Medal summary Legend: * WR = World record * ER = European record * CR = Championships record Men's events Women's ...

Rijeka Rijeka (; Fiume ( �fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman dialect, Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Ba ...

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

. There she won a silver medal in the 200 m freestyle behind

Federica Pellegrini Federica Pellegrini (; born 5 August 1988) is an Italian retired swimmer. A native of Mirano, in the former province of Venice (Metropolitan City of Venice since 2015), she won a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the 2009 World Cha ...

. She also finished fifth in the 100 m medley. At the end of 2008 she became Amsterdam Sportswoman of the year

2011

In 2011 Heemskerk won a gold medal at the

2011 World Aquatics Championships The 14th FINA World Aquatics Championships, FINA World Championships () were held on 16–31 July 2011 in Shanghai, Shanghai, China at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Center. The 2011 World Championships featured five aquatics disciplines: swimming ...

as part of the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay alongside

and

in a time of 3:33.96. She anchored the team with a split time of 52.46, the fastest split in the final by 0.53.

2012

London Olympics

At the

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

in London, Heemskerk and her teammates – Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Inge Dekker, Marleen Veldhuis, and Hinkelien Schreuder – won a silver medal in the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, an event in which they were the defending champions. The gold medal went to Australia.

2014

Heemskerk won her first individual world title at the 2014 world short course championships in

, Qatar, in the 100 m freestyle, ahead of

Sarah Sjöström Sarah Fredrika Sjöström (; born 17 August 1993) is a Swedish competitive Swimming (sport), swimmer specialising in the sprint Freestyle swimming, freestyle and Butterfly stroke, butterfly events and one of the most decorated swimmers of all ti ...

and Kromowidjojo. She won three more gold medals in the freestyle relays. In the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, she swam a split time of 50.58 s, the only split under 51 seconds in the field.

2015

After finishing outside the medals in her individual events (the 100 and 200 meter freestyle) at the

2015 World Aquatics Championships The 16th FINA World Aquatics Championships, FINA World Championships (), also Aquatics 2015, were held in Kazan, Russia from 24 July to 9 August 2015. Russia hosted this event for the first time. The number of participating national teams (190), ...

in Kazan, Heemskerk decided to move to France to train with coach Philippe Lucas.

2016 Olympics

Heemskerk qualified for the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

in Rio de Janeiro, her third Olympics, in the 100 and 200 meter freestyle and the 4 × 100 and 4 × 200 meter freestyle relays. With the 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay she finished 4th in the final, after having medalled in the past two Olympics. In the 200 meter freestyle, she finished 16th in the semifinals.

2017

3-5 March 2017 Heemskerk competed in Swim Cup The Hague where she won the 200 m freestyle with a time of 1:56.59, came second in the 100 m freestyle (time 54.19), and came third in the 50 m freestyle with a time of 25.29. Heemskerk competed in KZNB Challenger in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, on 18 and 19 March 2017. She finished first in 100 m freestyle with a time of 54.27. Heemskerk took part in the Swim Cup Eindhoven, the Dutch Championships and also qualification competitions for the

2017 World Aquatics Championships The 17th FINA World Championships () were held in Budapest, Hungary from 14 to 30 July 2017.

in Budapest on 14-17 July 2017. In the Swim Cup Eindhoven, Heemskerk won the 200 m freestyle event with a time of 1:56.62, securing a place for Budapest. Silver and bronze medals went to Isabel Gose and

Robin Neumann Robin Neumann (born 12 December 1997) is a Dutch competitive swimmer who specializes in freestyle. Neumann competed at the 2014 Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China, where she swam individually in the backstroke events. Since then she has changed h ...

who were at least 2.5 seconds slower than Heemskerk. In the 100 m freestyle event Heemskerk reached the finals and finished second with a time of 53.77, securing qualification for the Budapest championships.

International Swimming League

In the Autumn of 2019 she was member of the inaugural

swimming for the Energy Standard International Swim Club, who won the team title in Las Vegas, Nevada, in December.

Personal bests

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Heemskerk, Femke 1987 births Living people People from Kaag en Braassem World record holders in swimming Olympic swimmers for the Netherlands Swimmers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Swimmers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for the Netherlands Dutch female backstroke swimmers Dutch female freestyle swimmers Dutch female medley swimmers World Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming Olympic silver medalists for the Netherlands Medalists at the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) European Aquatics Championships medalists in swimming Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists in swimming Olympic silver medalists in swimming European Championships (multi-sport event) silver medalists Swimmers from South Holland 21st-century Dutch sportswomen