Paulien van Deutekom

In November 2005, Van Deutekom surprised when she skated among the best at the Speed Skating World Cup qualification tournament at several distances and as a result qualified for those World Cups. During her first ever World Cup event in the Olympic Oval in Calgary she skated a new Dutch record over 1500 metres, with a time of 1:55.43, overtaking the previous record by Annamarie Thomas. Her record was broken a week later by Ireen Wüst with a time of 1:54.93.

Later, in December 2005 she participated at the 2005 Dutch Single Distance Championships, which was also the Olympic Qualification tournament. At the 1500 metres distance she finished in second position and qualified for the 2006 Winter Olympics. She also had chances over 1000 metres, however only finished in fourth position and did not directly qualify. A skate-off between her and Barbara de Loor settled the contest for the slot in De Loor's favour. She was selected for the pursuit team. At the Olympics Van Deutekom finished 13th over 1500 metres, while the pursuit team was eliminated at an early stage.

In the European Championships Allround in January 2008 she came second after her teammate Ireen Wüst. In February 2008 Van Deutekom won the World Allround Speed Skating Championships in Berlin. In March 2008 Van Deutekom finished second at the World Single Distance Championships in Nagano in the 1500 metres and the 3000 metres. In March 2012 after the 1500 metre event at the World Cup in Heerenveen, Van Deutekom announced that she was ending her skating career.[1]

Following her retirement van Deutekom was a pundit for Dutch broadcaster NOS.[2] Van Deutekom died on 2 January 2019 after being diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier at the age of 37.[3][4] Van Deutekom is survived by her husband Kay van der Kooi and daughter Lynn, born in 2017.[2][5]

Source: SpeedskatingResults.com[6] & speedskatingbase.eu[7]

year	Dutch Distance	Dutch Sprint	Dutch Allround	European Allround	World Allround	World Sprint	World Distance	Olympics	World Cup
1999	15th 3000m
2000	11th 1500m 10th 3000m
2001	-	15th
2002	16th 1000m 16th 1500m 11th 3000m 6th 5000m	16th	NC13
2003	12th 3000m		NC14
2004	14th 1500m 17th 3000m		NC11
2005	13th 500m 8th 1000m 15th 1500m 14th 3000m	12th	NC11
2006	4th 1000m 1500m	9th						13th 1500m 6th team pursuit	11th 1000m 6th 1500m
2007	4th 1000m 1500m 3000m		4th	7th	6th		5th 1500m 6th 3000m team pursuit		25th 1000m 6th 1500m 9th 3/5 km team pursuit
2008	1000m 1500m 3000m	4th				12th	5th 1000m 1500m 3000m 8th 5000m team pursuit		9th 1000m 4th 1500m 13th 3/5 km 6th team pursuit
2009	7th 500m 1000m 1500m 3000m	5th		4th	7th				29th 1000m 24th 1500m 22nd 3/5 km
2010	13th 1000m 9th 3000m			12th					35th 1500m 39th 3/5 km 5th team pursuit
2011	-		10th
2012	12th 1000m 15th 1500m 13th 3000m		NC13

Source: www.sskating.com[8]