

Meet Björn
06 Mar 1991
Country
The Netherlands
Personal Bests
Few athletes within the NN Running Team boast quite the same inspirational story as the rising Dutch marathon talent.
Björn was encouraged to enter a local race by his father and after completing the 5km distance in 20 minutes this acted as a spur for his future running ambitions.
A little over a year later he quit smoking, adopted a healthier lifestyle and started to train more seriously. In 2016 he joined his current coach Bram Wassenaar and has since made dramatic progress.
Initially starting out as a track and cross country runner he later discovered he was better suited to the longer distances and made his half-marathon debut in 2018, recording 1:06:27 in his home city of Breda.
He continued his progression in 2019, shaving 28 seconds from his 21.1km best at Venloop Half Marathon, before recording 2:17:26 on his marathon debut in Eindhoven.
In 2020 he twice lowered his half-marathon best with 1:03:55 in Barcelona and 1:02:44 in Dresden. Bjorn then capped a memorable year he destroying his previous marathon best by more than six minutes to record 2:11:07 to win the Austrian Marathon Championships in Vienna and dip below the Olympic qualification standard.