In 1935, Blankers also became a national athletics coach and prepared the Dutch team to the 1936 Olympics. Soon after he founded a woman's athletics association in Amsterdam to promote sports among women. Within a few years "Sagitta" became the leading woman's athletics club in the Netherlands. At the 1938 European Athletics Championships its members Fanny Blankers-Koen and Nelly van Balen-Blanken won three medals in the sprint and high jump.