The Netherlands with a record number of athletes at the Winter Olympics | Currently

The Netherlands will start in Beijing in just over two weeks with the biggest team ever at the Winter Olympics. 42 athletes compete in seven different sports, also a record.

NOC*NSF awarded parachute skaters star Michelle Decker and four-man helmsman Bob Evo De Bruyne their last Olympic tickets on Tuesday, meaning the Beijing team is now complete.

Dekker, the snowboarding team around De Bruin and alpine skier Martin Meiners, didn’t meet NOC*NSF’s stringent qualification requirements, but they did get an exception from the Parachute Sports.

With 42 athletes, TeamNL broke the record for participants in the Winter Games. In 2014, 39 Dutch nationals took part in Sochi. Four years ago in Pyeongchang, the selection consisted of 31 names.

In total, the Netherlands enrolls athletes in seven different sports: long track speed skating, short track speed skating, snowboarding, bobsleigh, skeleton, snowboarding and alpine skiing. In the last four Winter Games, the Netherlands participated in four different disciplines, which is the old record.

As usual, long-track speed skating interests most Dutch Olympic athletes: eighteen. Then the short trackers come with ten passengers. These are the maximum numbers for those sports under the rules of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The Netherlands participates in snowboarding and skiing again

Lindsey van Zandert, the flag bearer, is the first Dutch snowboarder to participate in the Games since 1976. Adriana Jelinkova and Mainers became the first Olympic alpine skiers from the Netherlands seventy years ago.

The Dutch team for Beijing consists of 20 women and 22 men. Van Zandert, who turns seventeen on February 1, is the youngest Olympian, and Jurit Bergsma (turns 36 on February 1) is the oldest.

Last year, the Netherlands also set a record with 273 participants in the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

The Winter Games in Beijing begin on February 4 and run until February 20.