Early career In 1993, Van den Hoogenband achieved his first success, performing well on the European Youth Olympic Days. Before the Atlanta Games, Astrid van den Hoogenband, who was coaching the Dutch team, became frustrated with the swimmers representing the
Netherlands, feeling they had much potential but would not be able to live up to it due to lack of adequate support. She pleaded with Cees to take action, as he carried much weight through his professional connections. After Astrid threatened to remove Pieter from the sport, Cees created a small foundation and signed up 20 initial sponsors who each paid $2,500 to fund a team trainer. The Dutch swimming team eventually signed contracts with
Philips,
Nike, and
Speedo. Enough funds were raised to open a swim school in Eindhoven, Van den Hoogenband's place of residence. The team eventually grew to ten. Van den Hoogenband is the only swimmer in history who has managed to win both the 100–200 metre freestyle double at the Olympics and also repeat as 100 freestyle champion at the Olympics. His three Olympic gold medals are the only three won by a Dutch male pool swimmer.
1996 Olympics Van den Hoogenband's international breakthrough came at the
1996 Summer Olympics in
Atlanta. Only 18 years old, he exceeded the expectations of many by finishing 4th in both the
100 m and
200 m freestyle. He won the
50 m freestyle B final, and finished 5th in the
4×100 m freestyle relay, 7th in the
4×200 m freestyle relay, and 10th in the
4×100 m medley relay.
Later career 1998 World championships At the
1998 World Aquatics Championships in
Perth, Australia, Van den Hoogenband won bronze medal in the
200 metre freestyle and silver in the
4×200 m freestyle relay.
2000 Olympics After winning 6 gold medals at the
1999 European Championships, Van den Hoogenband was one of the favourites at the
2000 Summer Olympics, but his adversaries were formidable. In the
200 m freestyle he faced the world record holder,
Australian youngster
Ian Thorpe, favourite of the home crowd in
Sydney. In the semi-finals, Van den Hoogenband set a new world record, but Thorpe countered with a time only 0.02 s slower. In an exciting final, Van den Hoogenband equalled his time from the semi-finals to win the gold medal. In the
100 m freestyle, Van den Hoogenband again set a world record in the semi-finals and won his second gold medal, defeating the
1992 and
1996 champion,
Alexander Popov. His 100 m world record stood until 21 March 2008 and was broken by France's Alain Bernard (47.60). Van den Hoogenband won two more medals, both bronze, in the
50 m freestyle and the
4×200 m freestyle relay, in which he was the final swimmer. == Post-swimming career ==