The Dutch relay team members (4 x 100m) are all lung transplantees!
The Australian LOC wants the games this year to be bigger and better organised than ever before.
The Dutch team can help the LOC of the WTG Gold Coast 2009 by publicizing a unique happening: for the first time in the whole history of WTGF there will be a relay team entirely made up op lung transplantees. It comprises three Cystic Fibrosis patients (Bas van den Hoven, Martijn Oudeman and Bob Kallen) and one Lung Fibrosis patient (André Lassooij). Their successful transplants took place 5˝ , 2, 4 and 13˝ years ago respectively. Bas and Martijn are principally rowers, Bob is a tennis player and André’s speciality is athletics. In preparation for the 4 x 100m relay at the Gold Coast Games they have been meeting several times a month in centrally located Hilversum for stringent training. They aim to set a time of around 50 seconds.
It had long been considered in the Netherlands that successful lung transplants were the most difficult to perform. Consequently lung transplantation only began 20 years ago in The Netherlands - years after kidney transplants had become almost routine. Having a relay team totally made up of lung transplantees is therefore the ultimate tribute to the medical world’s capabilities. More importantly, as the living proof that organ transplantation gives a new and healthy lease on life, the team can be an effective inspiration and incitement to people to register themselves as organ donors.
Before their transplants, each of these four runners was terminally ill and had only a few days to live. Now these Flying Dutchmen are out to show the world, in the most prestigious of events, how dramatically organ transplant can transform lives.
From left to right: Final leg runner Martijn Oudeman, André Lassooij, Bob Kallen and the starter Bas van den Hoven
