Awesome Olympic Names: Spotlight on Epke Zonderland

For the third installation of awesome London 2012 athletes and their names, Epke Zonderland joins fellow Team Holland athlete Ranomi Kromowidjojo on the list.

Zonderland’s awesome appellation should be familiar to avid Olympic followers—yesterday he took home the gold for men’s high bar competition with epic panache. Plus, he’s kind of adorable, seems entirely affable,  and he’s studying to be a doctor.

Zonderland came to the London 2012 games as an individual gymnastics competitor for the Netherlands, after his country did not qualify to send an entire men’s team for gymnastic competition. He is a high bar and parallel bars specialist who had not been training for the full line-up of apparatuses in men’s gymnastics; however, in order to participate in these Summer Games, Zonderland had to get himself ready in all necessary skills for competition in the individual all-around field.

[That video got taken down, but you can see another version here.]

He is now the first Dutch gymnast to medal at the Olympics—and it’s gold.

So that’s intense. And awesome.

Oh, and let’s all feel free to refer to Epke Zonderland as “The Flying Dutchman.”

Clearly.

So there you have it, Epke is the Flying Dutchman, and Ranomi is the Flying Dutchwoman.

Seriously.