Piet Kleine

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Olympic medal record
Men’s Speed Skating
Silver 1976 Innsbruck 5,000 m
Gold 1976 Innsbruck 10,000 m
Silver 1980 Lake Placid 10,000 m

Pieter ("Piet") Kleine (born 17 September 1951 in Hollandscheveld, Drenthe) is a former speed skater from the Netherlands.

Contents

[edit] Short biography

At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Piet Kleine became Olympic Champion on the 10,000 m, beating world record holder Sten Stensen – who won silver – in a close race. This was a reversal of the roles in the Olympic 5,000 m (which had been held three days earlier), in which Stensen had won gold and Kleine silver. In both the 5,000 m and the 10,000 m, Dutch – later French – speed skater Hans van Helden (then world record holder on the 5,000 m) won bronze. Later that same year (1976), Kleine broke 4 worlds records (including Van Helden's 5,000 m world record) and also became World Allround Champion.

Kleine participated again in the Winter Olympics of Lake Placid (1980), winning Olympic silver on the 10,000 m behind Eric Heiden. He ended his career as a speed skater in 1981 and started a successful career in amateur bicycle racing. In 1985, as a member of the Dutch national team, he finished 5th at the World Championships on the 100 km team time trial.

In 1986, Kleine became a marathon skater. This led to some controversy in 1997 when he finished 5th in the Elfstedentocht, but was subsequently removed from the final list of results because of a missing stamp on his stamp card. The controversy lay in the fact that, afterwards, it became clear that in the past several winners of the Elfstedentocht had missed stamps too, but were still declared the winners.

Kleine ended his skating career in 2001 and continued his profession as a postman, a profession he had always kept alongside his sports careers. In his free time, Kleine is the leader of a team of marathon skaters.

He later coached Dan Jansen.

[edit] Medals

An overview of medals won by Kleine at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:

Championships Gold medal Silver medal Bronze medal
Winter Olympics 1976 (10,000 m) 1976 (5,000 m)
1980 (10,000 m)
World Allround 1976 1973
European Allround 1975
Dutch Allround 1978 1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1981		 1980

[edit] World records

Over the course of his career, Kleine skated 4 world records:

Distance Result Date Location
5,000 m 7:04.86 5 March 1976 Inzell
5,000 m 7:02.38 12 March 1976 Inzell
10,000 m 14:43.92 13 March 1976 Inzell
Big combination 165.884 13 March 1976 Inzell

[edit] Personal records

Distance Result Date Location
500 m 40.10
1,000 m 1:17.35 30 January 1981 Davos
1,500 m 1:56.28 13 March 1976 Inzell
3,000 m 4:08.86 26 February 1981 Inzell
5,000 m 7:02.38 12 March 1976 Inzell
10,000 m 14:36.03 23 February 1980 Lake Placid

Kleine has an Adelskalender score of 164.899 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a 2nd place.

[edit] References


Olympic champions in men's 10000 m speed skating
1924: Julius Skutnabb | 1932: Irving Jaffee | 1936: Ivar Ballangrud | 1948: Åke Seyffarth | 1952: Hjalmar Andersen | 1956: Sigvard Ericsson | 1960: Knut Johannesen  | 1964: Jonny Nilsson | 1968: Johnny Höglin | 1972: Ard Schenk | 1976: Piet Kleine | 1980: Eric Heiden | 1984: Igor Malkov | 1988: Tomas Gustafson | 1992: Bart Veldkamp | 1994: Johann Olav Koss | 1998: Gianni Romme | 2002: Jochem Uytdehaage | 2006: Bob de Jong 



Preceded by:
Jos Hermens		 Dutch Sportsman of the Year
1976		 Succeeded by:
Hennie Kuiper


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