VDH wins at Deutscher Ring Aquatics 2006

Day two of the Deutscher Ring Aquatics in Hamburg, Germany, saw three victories of Dutch swimmers.

First of all, Pieter van den Hoogenband won, as expected, the 200m freestyle event. Training partner Markus Rogan set the pace for VDH, who finished it off in 1:43:52.

Marleen Veldhuis beat Britta Steffen at the 50m in 0:24:09 and Inge Dekker (brand new European Champion at 100m butterfly) won her race in 0:57:80 at her preferred event.

Jacco Verhaeren (see photo), who is VDH's coach (and since this year technical director of the national swimming association, supervising the top swimming centres in Eindhoven and Amsterdam), believes that the initiative to create a new international swimming competition is a positive outlook for the sport.

"This is good promotion for swimming. The show elements they put in made it very entertaining for the audience. We really need this to promote the sport and attract more sponsors. I really think this competition has a future. Eventhough it wasn't easy for the swimmers to recharge so soon after the European Championships, they still wanted to perform well here. The prize money was also a very good incentive." (Each winner received $1,500).