LIVEBLOG: Dutch hero Van der Weijden is just a few hours away from finishing his 196 km swim for charity

Maarten van der Weijden. Ever heard of him? If you haven’t, you better learn it now! He’s a Dutch long-distance marathon swimmer and cancer survivor. He’s attempting to swim the ‘Elfstedentocht’, a 196 km swim which is usually used for ice-skating. He’s doing this to raise money for cancer research and has already raised 2.7 million euros.

Feat pic: By Lizanne Ganzevles (@Lizanganz -twitter)

Everyone’s cheering him on, are you?

 

Van der Weijden’s second attempt

He started his journey on Friday afternoon and is now at Burdaard. He finishes the race at Leeuwarden and is expected to reach there in a few hours. What makes this even more interesting than it already is, is that this will be his second attempt at doing this. Last time, he got sick in between his swim and was unable to finish it. But this time, it seems to be going well! He has only 20 km to go and already raised 2.7 million euros for cancer research.

Do you want to follow his journey to see him come up for air, and swim his way into everyone’s hearts? Don’t miss out on NOS’s live stream so that you can join in on this joyous and exhilarating experience! Cheer him on as he finishes the final leg of the swim.

Everyone loves a feel-good story like this one, don’t we? Van der Weijden was swimming through eleven cities over the weekend. What did you do? 😉

Kavana Desai
Kavana Desaihttps://medium.com/@kavanadesai
Coping with the aftermath of her 3-year stint in the Netherlands, Kavana is a writer, content creator and editor for DutchReview. Hailing from India, she frequently blogs about the Netherlands, being Indian in the Netherlands, and everything in between. She envisions herself to one day be the youngest person to win that Nobel Prize for Literature (she is also not very humble but welcomes only constructive criticism). In the meantime, she fills her days with writing for DutchReview, writing her master's thesis on art theft, and writing fiction that will hopefully see the light of day soon.

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