Dutch Pride - at the Olympics

As some of you have read, the Netherlands gets its medals at the Winter Olympics in one sport and one sport only, Speed Skating. Long-track Speed Skating. The Netherlands has won a whopping 96% of its medals at that one sport. Yesterday was no exception. We did have 2 skaters in the 1500m short-track semis, but we got the gold on the 5000m long-track by ways of the run-away favorite, Sven Kramer.

In Torino he came in 2nd after American Chad Hedrick at the tender age of 19, but since then he only lost 1 5k race in 2007 and hasn't lost since culminating in his first gold medal (and the Netherlands first medal) of the 2010 Olympics. Sven is also the run-away favorite on the 10k and as part of the team-pursuit a strong candidate to reach the same total of 3 gold medals as his childhood idol, the Norwegian great Johann Olav Koss who got 3 golds during the Lillehammer Games back in 1992.

After winning his first gold, Sven went for a short celebration (in his words: 1 glass of beer should be okay) at the Heineken Holland House before he'll go back to his quest for greatness. But before that quest is completed there are two more events to go. The whole of the Netherlands will be watching.

No pressure... ;-)

Sven Kramer set an Olympic record with his gold medal-winning time of 6:14:60 in the 5,000 meters. (Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP / Getty Images / February 13, 2010)