Bettine Vriesekoop
Hubertina Petronella Maria "Bettine" Vriesekoop (born 13 August 1961) is a former table tennis player from the Netherlands. She was European champion in 1982 and 1992 individually and in 1982 in mixed doubles. She competed at the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Olympics in singles and women doubles with the best achievement of sevenths place in both events in 1988. Vriesekoop started playing table tennis in 1972, and between 1977 and 2002 played at top level in Europe. She won the European Championship twice and was a Dutch Champion fourteen times in the singles and sixteen times in the  doubles. Until 1989 she worked with coach Gerard Bakker, and then worked with Jan Vlieg. Biography. Vriesekoop was the youngest of nine siblings in a farmers family. Her father died of cancer when she was nine years old. In 1995 she appeared on the cover of "Playboy Europe", and the issue contained an unprecedented 12-page interview with her. The money she received from "Playboy" helped her solve financial problems. She retired from competition in 1997, and in 1999 gave birth to a son, but her husband died shortly before that. While training in China she became interested in the  culture and then studied Chinese language and philosophy in Leiden. Between 2006 and 2009 she worked in Beijing as a freelance correspondent for several Dutch newspapers including NRC Handelsblad. She was selected as the "Dutch Table Tennis Player of the Century" in 2000 and as the Dutch Sportsman of the year in 1981 and 1985.