caption birth_date image article_title name retired
joan haanappel in 1981 13 november 1940 joan haanappel -lrb- 1964 -rrb- . jpg joan haanappel
 joan haanappel 1960
joan haanappel

joan haanappel -lrb- born november 13 , 1940 , the hague -rrb- is a former dutch figure skater , competitive in the 1950s and 60s , who later worked for television as a sports presenter and figure skating commentator.more recently she became involved with the dutch figure skating governing body knsb .
she started her sports career in her hometown in 1949 , and from the mid-1950s she and sjoukje dijkstra were successful in a sport which had hardly been known in the at all until then .
initially , haanappel was the most successful , and won the first of four dutch championships in 1955 .
haanappel won the bronze medal three times at the european championships , -lrb- ec -rrb- in 1958 , 1959 and 1960 .
she also took part in two olympic games ; as a fifteen-year-old she came 13th in 1956 -lrb- one place behind dijkstra -rrb- , and in 1960 she came 5th .
after the world championships of the same year she ended her competitive career , and started skating professionally , first for the vienna ice show and later for holiday on ice .
-lsb- http://www.holidayonice.com/uk_corporate_inframe.asp?ref=http://www.holidayonice.com/uk_corporate_info_history_stars.asp] she started her television career in 1976 as a presenter and commentator , first for studio sport , a dutch national channel then for eurosport .
she also worked in sports for zdf germany .
currently she works as a television freelancer .
in 2005 she was appointed to the figure skating committee of the royal netherlands skating federation -lrb- knsb -rrb- and a year later was elected a member of the knsb council , the first ever figure skater on the board in the 125 year old speed skating dominated sports body .
she left the knsb council in 2008 and founded skn -lrb- stichting kunstrijden nederland -rrb- which is dedicated to raising funds to help young talented figure skaters .
for her services to figure skating and sports television haanappel was knighted in 2008 in the `` orde van oranje-nassau '' .
