Olympic champion Veronique Meester retires from elite rowing
Veronique Meester (30) has decided to bring her impressive rowing career to an end after sixteen years. She now wants to focus on her career in medicine.
In various crew line-ups, and particularly alongside Ymkje Clevering, she achieved major successes at the highest international level. First, among others, in the coxless four together with Karolien Florijn and Ellen Hogerwerf (Olympic silver – Tokyo), and later in the coxless pair, winning the world title in 2023 and, a year later, Olympic gold in Paris as the absolute highlight of her career.
In recent months, Meester devoted time to completing her clinical internships and studies, while training in the evenings to rejoin TeamNL Rowing in preparation for the World Championships in Amsterdam. After training full-time again with the national team for two and a half months, she has decided to take a different path and focus on her future as a doctor:
“Rowing has always been my great passion, and I am very grateful for all the lessons it has taught me and all the friendships I have made. I now feel that it is time to discover new things.”
Meester comes from a true rowing family and knew from an early age that she wanted to get into a boat herself. After a period as a junior at the Hilversum rowing club Cornelis Tromp, she joined the Amsterdam student rowing club Nereus in 2013, at the same time as starting her bachelor’s degree in Medicine. In 2017 she won the Dutch Championships, after which she was invited to join the national selection of the Royal Dutch Rowing Federation (KNRB).
