Her personal best of 70.22m is the current (2021) Dutch record in the discus throw.[2] She represented her country in the discus at the 2019 World Championships in Doha without reaching the final. In the same year, she won a gold medal in the shot put at the 2019 European U20 Championships. On 20 May 2021, she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with a throw of 65.94m at the Tucson Elite Classic.[3]
Education
Van Klinken completed her undergraduate degree from Utrecht University in her home country.[4] After that, she pursued her graduate degree in Global Management at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix, Arizona, USA where she represented the Sun Devils in both discus and shot put.[5] She completed her college athletics eligibility at the University of Oregon where she graduated as a valedictorian with an accelerated MBA in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Career
In May 2021, Van Klinken qualified for the Tokyo Olympics when she threw a personal best of 65.94 during the Tucson Elite Classic held in Tucson, USA.[3] On 23 May 2021, at the USA Track Throws Festival, she threw the discus 70.22m which not only gave her a new personal best but also broke the Dutch national record and created a new world leading distance.[2] With this throw she became the second European woman to cross the 70m mark in the 21st century after two-time Olympic Champion Sandra Perković[2] and put her amongst the medal contenders at the Tokyo Olympics. In August 2022 Van Klinken won the bronze medal in shot put at the European Athletics Championships. [6]
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