VDH will race at 50m event

Pieter van den Hoogenband will race at the 50m freestyle event at the European Championships.

It's his first 50m race since the Olympics in Athens two years ago.

His qualifying time is 22:70. VDH will compete in the 7th heat on Saturday morning.

At this point it's not certain yet if VDH will already start in the 4x200 relay heats, also on Saturday morning.

[UPDATE 1]
VDH qualified for the semifinals in 14th place with 22:75. Fellow Dutchman Johan Kenkhuis qualified in 7th place with 22:60. Kenkhuis was part of the very successful relay team at the Olympics in Sydney (4x200 and 4x100) and Athens (4x100) where VDH, Kenkhuis and their team picked up the bronze and silver medal respectively. They've had great successes at various European Championships together, including short track. Kenkhuis is now only focussing on the 50m event and has dropped the 100m entirely.

[UPDATE 2]
As expected, VDH didn't join the 4x200 relay team in the heats. The team didn't qualify for the finals. They finished in 7:24:66.