| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | July 19, 1994 Haarlem, Netherlands | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Country | Great Britain | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | Speed skating | ||||||||||||||
| Event(s) | 500 m, 1000 m, 1500 m | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||
Cornelius Kersten (born July 19, 1994) is a British speed skater who represented Great Britain at the 2022 Winter Olympics. [1]
Kersten was born in the Netherlands and grew up in Heemstede, the son of an English mother and a Dutch father. He could not reach the top among the Dutch juniors in speed skating, and decided to represent England. Since there is no long track skating rink in England, he moved to Calgary, Canada, and joined a team there. Later, he moved to the Netherlands, and lives in Heerenveen with his partner Ellia Smeding, who is also a Dutch-English speed skater; they operate a coffee brewing business to finance their skating careers. [2]
At the 2023 World Single Distances Speed Skating Championships, Kersten won a bronze medal in the 1000 metres events, becoming the first British representative to win a medal at the single distance world championships. [3]
| Personal records | ||||
| Speed skating | ||||
| Event | Result | Date | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500-meter | 34.82 | 3 December 2021 | Salt Lake City | |
| 1000-meter | 1:07.33 | 12 December 2021 | Calgary | |
| 1500-meter | 1:44.29 | 11 December 2021 | Calgary | |
Approximately 5 million of the 17 million people in the Netherlands are registered to one of the 35,000 sports clubs in the country. About two thirds of the population older than 15 years participates in sports weekly.
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