Piet Kleine
Pieter "Piet" Kleine is a former speed skater from the Netherlands who specialized in the longer distances.
Short biography
At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Piet Kleine became Olympic Champion on the 10,000 m, beating world record holder Sten Stensen - who won silver - in a close race. This was a reversal of the roles in the Olympic 5,000 m, in which Stensen had won gold and Kleine silver. In both the 5,000 m and the 10,000 m, Dutch - later French - speed skater Hans van Helden won bronze. Later that same year, Kleine broke 4 worlds records and also became World Allround Champion.Kleine participated again in the Winter Olympics of Lake Placid, winning Olympic silver on the 10,000 m behind Eric Heiden. He ended his career as a speed skater in 1981 and started a successful career in amateur bicycle racing. In 1985, as a member of the Dutch national team, he finished 5th at the World Championships on the 100 km team time trial.
In 1986, Kleine became a marathon skater. This led to some controversy in 1997 when he finished 5th in the Elfstedentocht, but was subsequently removed from the final list of results because of a missing stamp on his stamp card. The controversy lay in the fact that, afterwards, it became clear that in the past several winners of the Elfstedentocht had missed stamps too, but were still declared the winners.
Kleine ended his skating career in 2001 and continued his profession as a postman, a profession he had always kept alongside his sports careers. In his free time, Kleine is the leader of a team of marathon skaters.
He later coached Dan Jansen.
Records
World records
Over the course of his career, Kleine skated 4 world records:| Discipline | Result | Date | Location | Note |
| 5000 meter | 7:04.86 | 5 March 1976 | Inzell | World record until 12 March 1976 |
| 5000 meter | 7:02.38 | 12 March 1976 | Inzell | World record until 19 March 1976 |
| 10000 meter | 14:43.92 | 13 March 1976 | align=left | - |
Personal records
Kleine has an Adelskalender score of 164.899 points. His highest ranking on the Adelskalender was 2nd place.Tournament overview
Medals won
Medals
An overview of medals won by Kleine at important championships he participated in, listing the years in which he won each:| Championship | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| Olympics Games | 1976 | 1976 1980 | |
| World Allround | 1976 | 1973 | |
| European Allround | 1975 | ||
| Dutch Allround | 1978 | 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1981 | 1980 |