Pieter van den Hoogenband, the Olympic 100m and 200m freestyle champion of 2000 who retained his 100m crown in 2004 and can claim the rare accolade of having beaten Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Michael Phelps and Alexander Popov on the biggest of occasions, is to retire in December. 

He will bow out at a meeting in Eindhoven on December 7, according to the Dutch ANP news agency. The 30-year-old Flying Dutchman found the era of the fast suit a stroke too far when it came to having a tilt at becoming the first man to retain an Olympic swimming crown for the second time of asking. The triple was not to be - but he gave it a terrific shot and looked world-class all the way to being gracious in defeat.

Home fans in Eindhoven, where his talent was nurtured from boyhood by coach Jacco Verhaeren to Olympic glory in Sydney 2000, when he defeated the young Ian Thorpe in the 200m and Alex Popov in the 100m. 

The world record of 47.84, phenomenal for its time and swum at a time when the fast suit technology of this past year was but a dream on the cutting-room floor, lasted until  Frenchman Alain Bernard, now Olympic 100m champion, clocked 47.60 at the European Championships at Hoogie's home pool in Eindhoven in March. The home hero was laid low by a virus at the time and his ability to get back up for the Games in Beijing, a fourth Olympic effort for the Dutchman, was called into question.

There was no medal in Beijing for Hoogie - but he returned home with head held high after a fourth place in a time of 47.75 - faster than his wins of 2000 and 2004 and just 0.08sec shy of the podium. At 50m, on  23.25, he was last over. He came home in the fastest second 50m of the final. Hoogie, a grounded man whose feet never left the floor despite his success, had reason to be proud, too, of  the role he played in the marathon success of his friend Maarten van der Weijden. 

The sprinter's father and Dutch team doctor Cees-Rijn van den Hoogenband, told in Beijing of how Dutch teammates had constantly teased Van der Weijden, inaugural Olympic 10km champion and a swimmer who fought cancer and won, for sleeping in a high-altitude tent. “We are always joking with Maarten: ‘go back to your tent, dog, get back in your kennel’. But he will do what it takes to win, like Pieter. When Pieter said ‘goodnight, see you at nine’, Maarten said ‘no, no, no – I want you there with me at 6am – you have to talk to me, tell me jokes, keep me company.” Hoogie did just that. 

He will be much missed in the race pool. He once recalled the passion that drove him to work hard as a boy: “I kept a book of all the records of 9-, 10- and 11-year-old boys in my bedroom. I wanted to be the best at every age. There were a lot of talented swimmers, but they stopped because of the pressure of the sport. But I enjoyed it." It showed.

In Athens 2004, he joined Johnny Weissmuller (USA) and Popov in the club of men who retained the Olympic two-lap sprint crown. The Eindhoven Express, as he was referred to after ending Popov’s run of European title wins over 100m at four in 1999, enjoyed winning but wanted more. After stopping Popov and Thorpe in Sydney, Van den Hoogenband said: “I'll stay Olympic champion for the rest of my life, but what I really want to do is break records by so much that they will stand for years ... I'd like to be the Bob Beamon of swimming." Bernard and the era of the fast suit put paid to that, though almost eight years as the fastest 100m man the world had ever seen remains a truly amazing feat.

Van de Hoogenband had long been recognised as talented but his journey to legendary status was fraught with struggle. A swimmer by the time he was 4, he grew up in a sports family, his father, Cees Reyn, played water polo and worked as team doctor to PSV Eindhoven football club, while his mother, Astrid Verver, was a European junior silver medallist in the 800m freestyle in 1971. Their son wanted to play soccer but he was better in water.

On the turn of 14 he began to train with coach Jacco Verhaeren, at the time only 23 himself. Years later, at the 2007 World Championships in Australia, where Van den Hoogenband celebrated his 29th birthday, Verhaeren recalled: “Pieter said to me ‘ah, now you're officially half my life’. I grew up as a coach and he grew up as an athlete at the same time. We did everything together, I tried to be every time one step ahead in my knowledge but in some areas he would later catch me up because he was then a big star."

Van den Hoogenband was impressive at 15: he won two gold medals and a silver medal at the European Youth Olympics held in Eindhoven. A year later, in the summer that saw Popov win his first world titles, became the first European junior to win the 100m, 200m and 400m at the continent’s youth championships ahead of two other future senior champions, Italians Massimiliano Rosolino (200m) and Emiliano Brembilla (400m). Frustration followed when the young Dutch prospect missed the podium at the 1995 European Championships in Vienna by 0.09sec in the 100m freestyle final won by Popov, 1.22sec ahead. Then at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Van den Hoogenband finished fourth in the 100m and 200m freestyle. “Some people said before the Olympics that I would be the new champion, but I discovered that it is easy to say, but it is not so easy to do,” he said later. 

“Hoogie” continued to show promise, and won bronze in the 200m freestyle at the 1998 World Championships, but the big breakthrough came only in 1999 in Istanbul, when the talk of the European Championships was the Dutchman’s defeat of Popov over 50m and 100m freestyle. He also rocketed past defending champion Paul Palmer (GBR) in the 200m but the wins were less significant that the times: his 48.47 over 100m was faster than Popov or five-time Olympic gold medal winner Matt Biondi (USA) had ever swum in pursuit of a major championship title. 

In Olympic year, Van den Hoogenband lost all three titles in the midst of preparing for the bigger prize. His persistence and patience paid massive dividends at Sydney 2000, where he felled two of the biggest giants in swimming history. Thorpe was on a roll but had also been affected by a magnificent first day at the Games, which included gold medals in the 400m and a 4x100m relay that witnessed a 100m freestyle world record of 48.18 for Michael Klim on the Australian opening leg. Day two, and Van den Hoogenband was fresh and raring to go. It showed over the most perfect three days of the Dutchman’s fine career: on September 17, he shaved 0.16sec off Thorpe’s world record in the semi-final of the 200m, a day later equalled that mark to keep the Australian pre-Games favourite at bay by 0.48sec, and 24 hours later raced into the lane four of the 100m final with a breathtaking 47.84 world record that marked the first sub-48sec effort. A measure of the draw created by Van den Hoogenband can be found in an telling statistic: Popov’s 48.69 for silver was faster than the times in which he had won the crown in 1992 and 1996.

The years between Olympic Games brought a slew of six silver medals for Van den Hoogenband at the 2001 and 2003 World Championships: in the 200m he would never again defeat Thorpe, who set new standard on a course to winning the World titles in Fukuoka and Barcelona ahead of his Dutch rival and then defeated Van den Hoogenband the 2004 Olympic final that saw both men fend off Phelps, his bronze one of two in a sea of five gold medals won in finals and one with a relay preliminaries swim.

The 100m tale had a different twist, one that would see Van den Hoogenband and Thorpe stand on a podium together one last time: beaten by Anthony Ervin (USA) in 2001 and Popov in 2003, the Dutchman defended his Olympic crown in the face of Roland “The Blade” Schoeman (RSA), who had clocked 48.17, then the second-fastest ever, leading the South African 4x100m relay to the shock victory of the Games three days earlier. Schoeman was 0.56sec inside world-record pace at the 50m turn, with the champion 0.67 behind him. On the way home, the Dutchman swam 0.73sec faster, and the crown was retained 48.17 to 48.23, with Thorpe third in 48.56.

Four years later, beyond back surgery, slow recovery and a 2007 World Championships at which Van den Hoogenband took silver on a 200m freestyle that saw Phelps break Thorpe’s world record, in 1:43.86. Over 100m, the Verhaeren’s charge was sixth but the coach said calmly: "We are still working on his dream of winning the three in a row. Its all about trying to follow your dream.” And not only in the water: on June 23, 2006, the swimmer and his wife Minouche Smit, a former Dutch international herself, celebrated the birth of daughter Daphne.

Watch out 2024! And here's to your dad - for a while the most thrilling sprinter on the blue planet and always a very fine ambassador for his sport.