Willy den Ouden

Biography

Den Ouden was born to Willemijntje Kuipers and Antonius Victor Jozephus den Ouden, a café owner in Rotterdam, then the swimming center of the Netherlands. At age 13 in 1931, she became champion of the Rotterdamsche Dames Zwemclub in the 100m freestyle and broke the Dutch national record with a time of 1:10.4. Between the Olympics, she excelled: at the 1934 European Championships in Magdeburg, she won all three events she entered, though a shared win in the 400m with Rie Mastenbroek resulted in a silver medal after she declined a swim-off.

On July 9, 1933, in Antwerp, she broke Helene Madison's world record in the 100m freestyle with 1:06.0, later improving it to 1:04.8 in April 1934 and finally 1:04.6 on 27 February 1936 in Amsterdam. This record stood until 1956, when Dawn Fraser and Cocky Gastelaars broke it within ten days, giving den Ouden a record tenure of 22 years and 8 months. She also set world records in the 200m freestyle (three times between 1933 and 1936), the 400m freestyle (1934), and various shorter distances including 100 yd, 150 yd, 220 yd, 300 yd, 400 yd, 300 m, and 500 m freestyle.

She anchored Dutch relay teams that broke the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay world record in 1934 and 1936. On February 4, 1934, she became the first woman to swim 100 yards under a minute (59.8 seconds). In 1935, she simultaneously held all ten world records for freestyle swimming at 500 m and shorter.