Career
He participated in the Winter Olympics, twice (in 1980 and 1984), but his highest finish was fourth place in the 5,000 meters in 1980 in Lake Placid. In 1986, Van der Duim switched to marathon skating and impressed by his high skating speed. On 28 November 1986, he became World Hour Record holder, skating 39,492.80 metres in one hour.
He was forced to end his skating career when he was involved in a severe automobile accident in 1987, driving home after a marathon.
Van der Duim was of the last generation of skaters before the commercialization of the sport in the Netherlands. The Dutch skating league had such strict rules against advertising, for instance, that Van der Duim was threatened with expulsion after he appeared on television with the name of a sponsor on his hat.
Van der Duim also gained fame as a colourful skater because of several "incidents". At the European Allround Championships in 1981, he fell on the 10,000 m and finished this distance in a time of 15:28.53 (for comparison: during the European Championships the year before, he had skated a time of 15:0629).
After his 10,000 m race, Van der Duim explained that skating over "bird poop" had made him fall, causing widespread speculation in the Dutch popular press over the nature of the bird.
Later, Van der Duim admitted there had been no excrement, but the episode has come to stand for any unexplained failure in Dutch sports. On the 5,000 m at the World Allround Championships that same year, he sprinted to the finish line one lap too soon and it took him some time to understand what people were trying to tell him – that he had one more lap to go. After an excellent 500 m race, he finished only 17th on the 5,000 m and therefore did not qualify for the final distance, the 10,000 m.
After his distastrous 5,000 m race, Van der Duim declared that he had "porridge in his legs".
Source: www.isu.org
Van der Duim has an Adelskalender score of 162.253 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was a 3rd place.