Below you will find more about John Bestebroer:
- Visiting the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
- As Olympic torchbearer
- Olympic athletes
OLYMPIC GAMES
Since 1992 John Bestebroer visited different Olympic Games. During five Summer Olympics (1992, 2000, 2004, 2012, 2024) and three Winter Olympics (2002, 2006, 2010) he had unforgettable experiences and built interesting relationships and a network of sports enthusiasts. Unfortunately, plans to attend the Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 Games were not possible due to the Corona virus.
PARALYMPIC GAMES
After participating in the Paralympic Games in Beijing 2008, John Bestebroer also visited the Paralympic Games in Vancouver 2010, London 2012 and Paris 2024.
THE OLYMPIC FLAM
When you say Olympic Games, you also say Olympic flame. All the Olympic Games John was visiting, he was also everytime visiting the Olympic Flam.
In 2004 John was flying to Greece and was present at the lighting ceremony of the Olympic flame in Olympia.
Because of his special connection with the Olympic Games, John Bestebroer became one of the 130 torch bearers in Amsterdam in 2004.
OLYMPIC ATHLETES
Over the years Bestebroer made many Olympic friends from all over the world. he also made friendships with former Olympian and Paralympians. Below some of these special connections.
Gerrit Voorting -Silver medal 1948 London-England in Cycling
John Bestebroer was as a spectator in London 2012. In his Olympic collection there was a silver medal from the Olympic Games 1948. John made the decision to sell this medal during the Olympic Games in London by an auction. The money should been given to the Foundation Sport Compass. He already received an offer from Japan for 14.000 euro (about 24.580 Australian dollars these days).
On the openingsday of the Olympic Games in London, John saw a television interview with the 89 year old Dutch olympian Gerrit Voorting, who participated in 1948 in the London Games in cycling. He was one of the 2 dutch winners of a silver olympic medal, but back in the Netherlands he lost his medal. John Bestebroer heard this story and directly stopped the auction and gave the silver medal back to the original winner, Gerrit Voorting. It became worldwide news that the Olympic medal came back after 64 years.
Eric Heiden USA- 5-time gold medal winner 1980 Lake Placid-USA in Speed skating
As a young boy, John was watching the Olympic winter games in 1980 in front of the television and saw the american speedskater Eric Heiden winning all his olympic races. Impressed by this, John was more interesting in the Olympic Games and later he was visiting many Olympic Games all over the world. His dream was to have a photo with his Olympic hero Eric Heiden.
In 2002 and 2006 he visited the Olympic winter Games and knew that Eric heiden became the team doctor of the USA team. In 2006 he was seeing Eric Heiden in the speedskating stadium but it was not possible to meet him because of securrity reasons. For many years he was disappointed and when he was visiting friends in the USA and he shared this with friends of a friend. One of this friends was knowing Eric Heiden very well and after a phone call, 10 minutes later John was meeting Eric Heiden.
Rie Mastenbroek NED- 4 time medal winner (3 gold, 1 silver) 1936 Berlin -Germany in swimming.
Since his first visit at the Olympic Games in 1992 John became interested about Olympic medal winners and specific from the Netherlands. After doing more research he direct was impressed about the Olympic swimmer from 1936, Rie Mastenbroek. His biggest wish was to have a conversation with her to know more about the Olympic Games in Berlin, but was affraid that Rie Mastenbroek didn't want to talk about the "nazi games" as they were named after World war II.
Contact was made between Rie Mastenbroek and John, and after their first meeting a special connection was there. Weekly John Bestebroer was calling Rie and their contact became unique and warm. She was even sending valentine's card to him. In 2003 Rie Mastenbroek died at the age of 84, but John Bestebroer continued to give her public attention. After her dead swimmingpools, streets, sport complex's and buildings were named after Rie Mastenbroek, because Bestebroer kept drawing attention to her. In 2020 a book about the life of Rie Mastenbroek was published and John Bestebroer was giving his collaboration to this book. Bestebroer is still giving his Olympic friend the attention she deserves.
