THE HAGUE, 26/08/08 - The national sports body NOC-NSF is pleased with the performance of the Dutch athletes at the Olympic Games. The Netherlands went to Beijing with the ambitious target of reaching the top 10 in the medal list; it just failed to make this.

The Dutch team won 16 medals in Beijing (7 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze), putting the Netherlands in 12th place. This was better than at the previous Games in Athens, when it came 18th, but worse than the 8th place it achieved in Sydney in 2000 - the best performance ever for the Netherlands.

Chef de mission Charles van Commenee named swimming and cycling as the disciplines where the harvest disappointed this time. He naturally praised the medal-winners and named several noteworthy aspects of the Dutch performance.

Thus, the medals were won in Beijing in more different disciplines than in Sydney. The Netherlands also performed much better than neighbour Belgium, which only claimed one gold and one silver.

Six of the seven gold medals were won by women. And if medals for team sports were not counted as a single medal, the Netherlands would actually have come sixth based on the gold for the Dutch water polo and hockey women. The sole male gold did perhaps add most lustre to the picture, as long-distance swimmer Marcel van der Weijden is a cancer survivor.