Joan Haanappel

Joan Haanappel
Joan Haanappel in 1981
Personal information
Country represented	Netherlands
Born	(1940-11-13) November 13, 1940
Retired	1960
Medal record Competitor for  Netherlands Ladies' Figure skating European Championships Bronze 1960 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Ladies' singles Bronze 1959 Davos Ladies' singles Bronze 1958 Bratislava Ladies' singles

Joan Haanappel (born November 13, 1940, The Hague) is a former Dutch figure skater, competitive in the 1950s and 60s, who later worked for television as a sports presenter and figure skating commentator.More recently she became involved with the Dutch figure skating governing body KNSB.

She started her sports career in her hometown in 1949, and from the mid-1950s she and Sjoukje Dijkstra were successful in a sport which had hardly been known in The Netherlands at all until then. Initially, Haanappel was the most successful, and won the first of four Dutch championships in 1955.

Haanappel won the bronze medal three times at the European Championships, (EC) in 1958, 1959 and 1960. She also took part in two Olympic Games; as a fifteen-year-old she came 13th in 1956 (one place behind Dijkstra), and in 1960 she came 5th. After the World Championships of the same year she ended her competitive career, and started skating professionally, first for the Vienna Ice Show and later for Holiday on Ice.

She started her television career in 1976 as a presenter and commentator, first for Studio Sport, a Dutch national channel then for Eurosport. She also worked in sports for ZDF Germany. Currently she works as a television freelancer.

In 2005 she was appointed to the figure skating committee of the Royal Netherlands Skating Federation (KNSB) and a year later was elected a member of the KNSB Council, the first ever figure skater on the Board in the 125 year old speed skating dominated sports body. She left the KNSB Council in 2008 and founded SKN (Stichting Kunstrijden Nederland) which is dedicated to raising funds to help young talented figure skaters.

For her services to figure skating and sports television Haanappel was knighted in 2008 in the “Orde van Oranje-Nassau”.

Results

External links

• Haanappel's comments on the 1994 Europeans