Maarten van der Weijden mid-attempt. Photo: Facebook
You may or may not have heard about Maarten van der Weijden. He’s a guy from the Netherlands who is an outrageously good swimmer. So good, in fact, that in 2008, he won a gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games. He recently swam just over 100 miles to raise money for cancer research, and look at his hands and feet!
After 55 hours in the water, Maarten van der Weijden’s hands look a little deflated. Photo: hartvannederland.nl
This is pruning on a whole different level. Photo: hartvannederland.nl
Cancer research is near-and-dear to van der Weijden’s heart. See, when he was 19 years old, he was diagnosed with leukemia. Doctors told him that his chances of survival were slim—but oh boy, did he ever prove them wrong. A mere two years after his diagnosis, he not only beat the cancer but was back in the water swimming his ass off. Seven years later, he took his gold medal.
Surprisingly, his recent feat actually fell a little short of the mark he set for himself. Initially, van der Weijden planned on swimming 120 miles along the Elfstedentocht, a series of rivers and canals that winds through the Netherlands that is used as the track for a very famous speed-skating event.
Maarten’s initial plan was to swim the whole thing in three days, stopping only for short naps. After 163 km (about 101 miles), van der Weijden had to call a stop to the attempt, as he’d gotten sick and the water he was swimming through was deemed to be too polluted to continue. Even still, the attempt was a huge success. After swimming for 55 hours, he managed to raise over $4 million for the Maarten van der Weijden Foundation.
