Piet Kleine

Piet Kleine

Piet Kleine in 2006
Personal information
Born	(1951-09-17) 17 September 1951 Hollandscheveld, Netherlands
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)
Weight	86 kg (190 lb)
Sport
Country	Netherlands
Sport	Speed skating
Turned pro	1973
Retired	1981
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	500 m: 40.10 (1981) 1000 m: 1:17.35 (1981) 1500 m: 1:56.28 (1976) 3000 m: 4:08.86 (1981) 5000 m: 7:02.38 1976) 10 000 m: 14:36.03 (1980)
Medal record Men's speed skating Representing the  Netherlands Olympic Games 1976 Innsbruck 10000 m 1980 Lake Placid 10000 m 1976 Innsbruck 5000 m World Championships 1976 Heerenveen Allround 1973 Deventer Allround European Championships 1975 Heerenveen Allround

Pieter "Piet" Kleine (born 17 September 1951) is a former speed skater from the Netherlands who specialized in the longer distances.

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.

Medals

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

Records

World records

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

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com^[1]

Personal records

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

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Piet Kleine.

External links

• Piet Kleine at speedskatinghalloffame.com
• Piet Kleine's ranking and personal records on the current Adelskalender

Awards
Preceded by Jos Hermens	Dutch Sportsman of the Year 1976	Succeeded by Hennie Kuiper
Olympic Games
Preceded by Dianne de Leeuw	Flagbearer for  Netherlands Lake Placid 1980	Succeeded by Hilbert van der Duim