Following a donation to a Leeuwarden breast cancer center earlier this month, Olympic swimming gold medallist Maarten van der Weijden has made known which other organisations will be receiving a portion of the money raised during his Elfstedentocht charitable swim.
Translation by Thomas Ansell
As reported by Omrop Fryslan, Van der Weijden publicised his first three donations on his social media channels on Thursday. In total, he raised around 6.1 million euros swimming the famous Frisian Eleven Cities skating route (Elfstedentocht).
Van der Weijden has donated around 4.4 million euros to KWF Kankerbestrijding, the Dutch Cancer Society for funding and guiding research, as well as around 1.1 million euros to the Stichting Kinderen Kankervrij (a foundation focussing on children’s cancer). The final donation announced on Thursday was around 560,000 euros to the Stichting Roparun, which holds relay races where all money raised goes to making the lives of people who suffer from cancer more tolerable.
Whilst the swimmer was being honoured in his home town of Waspik, he announced that the exact figure raised at that time was 6,125,967.25 euros. That amount is now being allocated to various cancer-related charities, with the bulk of it having been bequeathed to the three foundations mentioned. Previously, the Van der Weijden Foundation also donated around 100,000 Euros to the Leeuwarden breast cancer centre.
Last year, Van der Weijden had to abandon his swimming challenge on medical advice, but the 2008 Olympic 10KM open water gold medallist, and winner of the 25KM open water race at the 2008 World Championships, bounced back this year.
