Eric de Kuyper near Nijmegen in Kranenburg in Germany, about from the Dutch border, as does the main character of de Kuyper's short story "De verkeerde krant," ("The Wrong Newspaper"). De Kuyper has said that he feels at home both in Belgium and the Netherlands to a certain degree, as well as somewhat of a stranger in each of the countries. De Kuyper's first novel ("Aan zee: taferelen uit de kinderjaren"; "By the Sea: Scenes from a Childhood") consists of a series of insightful snapshots of a small boy's life in post-World War II Brussels and family summer vacation at Ostend.Together, they conjure
Jan Bols flag half-staff in the stadium. Bols did (bronze) medal in both the 1972 European and World all-round championships. The next year, he joined most top skaters in a short-lived professional league, finishing third and second in their championships in 1973 and 1974. After retiring from competitions in 1974 he ran a sporting goods shop in his hometown of Hoogeveen. To put these personal records in perspective, the "WR" column lists the official world records on the dates that Bols skated his personal records. † Ard Schenk skated 7:09.8 the same day, so Bols' 7:10.7 did not become a world record.