Dutch athletes are on course to come back with a record haul of gold medals from this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, which open on Friday.

Data analysis bureau Gracenote predicts a total of 34 medals for the Dutch team, slightly fewer than the 36 it won three years ago in Tokyo.

But it expects 17 of those medals to be gold, compared to 10 in Tokyo and beating the record from Sydney in 2000, when the strains of the Wilhelmus rang out 12 times.

Since 1990 the Netherlands has invested heavily in top-level sport and the policy has paid dividends. If Gracenote’s forecasts are accurate it is on course to finish fourth in the medal table behind the USA, China and host nation France.

“You can broadly say that the size of the population and the size of the economy explain 50% of a country’s sporting success at the top level,” Maarten van Bottenburg, professor of public administration at Utrecht University told AD.nl.

“On that basis the Netherlands shouldn’t be anywhere near the top 10. But we systematically rank higher, and that’s the result of our policies.”

Investment pays off

Around 550 top athletes receive a regular income from the state, while facilities such as the multi-sport training complex at Papendal have been developed in the last 20 years.

The Netherlands is also strong in women’s sport, which has grown in recent decades: for the first time in Olympic history, half the competitors in Paris will be female, compared to 23% in Los Angeles in 1984 and 41% in Athens in 2004.

Dutch medal hopes are concentrated on the athletics and cycling tracks, in the water and on the hockey pitch, where both the men’s and women’s teams are among the favourites.

Sifan Hassan

On the track and road, Sifan Hassan is attempting an astonishing four distances: the 1500m, 5000m, 10000m and the marathon.

She will be defending her 5000m and 10000m titles and has won both her marathons to date, running the second fastest time ever by a woman of 2:13:44 in Chicago last October.

The athletics track will also feature one of the most keenly awaited contests of the Games when Femke Bol takes on world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the women’s 400m hurdles.

The two have studiously avoided each other this season, with McLaughlin lowering her own world record to 50.65 seconds at the US Olympic Trials, while Bol set a European record of 50.95 in Switzerland just over a week ago.

Bol could add further medals in the women’s and mixed 4x400m relays, while her team-mate Lieke Klaver has a good chance of a medal in the individual 400m.

European champion Jessica Schilder is among the contenders in the shot put, while Jorinde van Klinken has a chance of a medal in the discus.

Martina’s sixth Games

In the men’s team, hopes of a podium position rest with Liemarvin Bonevacia in the 400m and Niels Laros in the 1500m. The 40-year-old Churandy Martina is competing in his sixth Olympics as a member of the men’s 4x100m relay squad.

He ran for the Netherlands Antilles in 2004 and 2008, but had to switch to the Dutch team when the Antilles ceased to be an autonomous nation in 2010.

In track cycling, Harrie Lavreysen has a chance of three gold medals in the sprint, the team sprint and the keirin. If he wins all three he will take his career haul to five, equalling the Dutch record set by speed skater Sven Kramer.

Yoeri Havik and Jan-Willem van Schip start as favouries in the Madison, while Mathieu van der Poel has passed up the mountain biking to maximise his chances in the individual road race.

Swimming

Hopes in swimming rest with Tes Schouten, world champion in the 200m breaststroke, and Sharon van Rouwendaal, who has a good chance of adding to her gold and silver medals in the 10km open water race.

Gracenote predicts three gold medals for the rowing team, including a win for Karolien Florijn in the skiff,while windsurfer Luuc van Opzeeland is a contender in the IQFoil class, a new discipline in Paris.

Sadly, BMX rider Niek Kimmann will not be defending his title from Tokyo after he was diagnosed last month with an inflamed heart muscle.

The men’s and women’s hockey teams are also medal contenders. The Dutch women are currently defending champions.

Refugees competing

Three refugees living in the Netherlands will also be competing as part of the IOC’s international refugee team.

Muna Dahouk, who fled from Syria and now lives near Den Bosch, is competing in the women’s judo, while Mohammed Rashnonezhad from Iran is taking part in the men’s competition.

They will be joined by Dina Pouryounes, also from Iran and currently living in The Hague, who is participating in the women’s taekwondo.

Dahouk told Trouw she came to the Netherlands in 2019, four years after her brother fled Syria. Her father died before he could reach safety, while her brother crossed the Mediterranean on a boat and eventually reached the Netherlands alone, as a 14-year-old boy. Her mother joined him a year later.

Dahouk learned judo from her father, who coached the sport, but had scarcely practised for 10 years by the time she and her sister arrived in the Netherlands.

“I was in shock,” she said. “How could I come back from 10 years without training? Judo is hard. If you want to be good at it you need to train every day. A 10-year pause is almost the same as starting again.”