Background
Den Ouden was a daughter of Willemijntje Kuipers and Antonius Victor Jozephus den Ouden, a café owner in Rotterdam, a town that was then the swimming center of the Netherlands.
Den Ouden was a daughter of Willemijntje Kuipers and Antonius Victor Jozephus den Ouden, a café owner in Rotterdam, a town that was then the swimming center of the Netherlands.
In the series, she also broke the Olympic record on the 100 m. However, the diminutive Den Ouden -she reached 1.55 m (51 ft)- was far more successful between these two Olympic games. On July 9, 1933 in Antwerp, she broke Helene Madison"s two-year-old world record on the 100 m freestyle, setting it at 1:06.0.
She would improve on this three times, swimming 1:04.8 in April 1934 and finally reaching 1:04.6 on 27 February 1936 in Amsterdam.
This record would last until 1956 when it was broken twice within ten days by Dawn Fraser and Cocky Gastelaars, respectively. Thus, she held the world record for the top event in swimming for an unequalled 22 years and 8 months.
Den Ouden further broke the world records on the 200 m freestyle (three times between 1933 and 1936), the 400 m freestyle (in 1934), and the now defunct distances of 100 yd, 150 yd, 220 yd, 300 yd, 400 yd, 300 m, and 500 m freestyle. She was also the anchor swimmer for the Dutch relay teams that broke the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay record in 1934 and in 1936.
On February 4, 1934, she became the first woman to swim 100 yards in under a minute (598 seconds).
In 1935 she held all 10 world-records freestyle swimming for 500 m and shorter simultaneously. She retired from competitive swimming in 1938, at the age of 20, after obtaining a silver medal at the European Championship"s 4 × 100 m freestyle relay. She set her eyes on an acting career and in 1939 she was cast in the Belgian movie Van het een komt het ander ("One Thing Leads to Another").
However the outbreak of the Second World War stopped the production.
The German invasion of the Netherlands piled on the misery: Den Ouden was engaged, but her fiancé"s family fled to America just before the invasion, and her parental house was destroyed on May 14, 1940 in the bombing of Rotterdam. Most if not all of her medals and prizes were lost in the burning rubble.
The couple moved to Saltsjöbaden in Sweden after the wedding, but the marriage didn"t last and in 1946 Den Ouden returned to Rotterdam. Her last marriage only lasted half a year.
Den Ouden spent her further life in anonymity although she was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1970.