{"id":488889,"date":"2021-10-05T02:55:06","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T09:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=488889"},"modified":"2021-10-05T13:38:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T20:38:39","slug":"femke-heemskerk-to-retire-after-the-isl-season-with-olympic-world-and-european-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/femke-heemskerk-to-retire-after-the-isl-season-with-olympic-world-and-european-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Femke Heemskerk To Retire After The ISL Season With Olympic, World And European Titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Femke Heemskerk<\/strong> will retire after the conclusion of the International Swimming League season following a career that has encompassed Olympic, world and European titles.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old competed at four Olympics<\/a>, winning gold on her Games debut at Beijing 2008 as part of the Netherlands 4×100 freestyle relay team.<\/p>\n

She was a member of the quartet who won silver four years later at London 2012 and on top of her Olympic medals, Heemskerk will leave the pool with eight world – two of them gold – and 18 European medals, including three trips to the top of the podium.<\/p>\n

There were also seven world short-course titles among a haul of 18 and 14 European 25m medals of which five were gold.<\/p>\n

Heemskerk’s astonishing longevity was underlined this year when she won her first individual international long-course title at the age of 33 with victory over 100m freestyle in Budapest.<\/p>\n

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Heemskerk wins first individual European title<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
At the Tokyo Olympics in July, Heemskerk reached the 100 free final where she placed sixth.<\/p>\n
Now she has announced she will retire following the ISL in which she will compete for Energy Standard at the Pieter van den Hoogenband Swimming Stadium in Eindhoven, Netherlands, with the playoffs starting next month.<\/p>\n
Should Energy qualify for the final as expected, she will conclude her fine career on 7\/8 January with the host city yet to be announced.<\/p>\n
Heemskerk posted to social media:<\/p>\n
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View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A post shared by Femke Heemskerk (@femheemskerk)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n