Lieke Klaver

Lieke Klaver ([ˈlikə ˈklaːvər]; born 20 August 1998) is a Dutch track and field athlete who specialises in sprint races. Klaver represented Netherlands at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She took four national titles.

Klaver finished fourth in the 400 metres at the 2022 World Athletics Championships. Klaver won the silver medal for the event at the 2023 European Indoor Championships. She earned five major medals as part of Dutch 4 × 400 m relays, either women's or mixed, including silver for the mixed relay at the 2022 World Championships.

Lieke Klaver gained her first international experience at age 15 at the 2014 World Under-20 Championships held in Eugene, Oregon, U.S., where she competed in the 4 × 100 metres relay. A year later, she reached the final of the 200 metres at the European U20 Championships in Eskilstuna, Sweden. Dutch women's 4 × 100 m relay team was disqualified in the final there, but their time from the heats would have given them second place in the final.

She was still a junior when she claimed her first senior Dutch national title, winning the 200 m at the 2017 Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships in Apeldoorn.

Since 2018, Klaver has started competing also in the 400 metres, gradually shifting her focus to that distance, but without losing sight of the shorter event. In 2019, she won two medals for the 400 m at the Dutch Championships (indoors and out). It earned her a place in the national 4 × 400 m relay team, which finished seventh at the Doha World Championships in Qatar that year.

In 2020, she claimed her first Dutch 400 m title (indoors), staying ahead of training buddy and rival Femke Bol. During this pandemic season, Klaver won also her first Diamond League race, with victory in the 400 m at the Golden Gala in Rome, Italy with a time of 50.98 s, becoming just the second Dutch woman to break the 51-second barrier.

She represented Netherlands at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, competing in the women's 400 m and both the women's and mixed 4 × 400 m relays.

In February 2022, at the Dutch Indoor Championships, she set a new personal best for the indoor 400 m in a time of 51.20 s. During the summer season Klaver lowered greatly her outdoor pre-2022 best (50.98 s) down to 50.18 seconds in the semi-finals at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, where she finished fourth in the final.

In February 2023, in the 400 m race at the Dutch Indoors in which Femke Bol set a world record of 49.26 s, she massively lowered her lifetime indoor best by nearly 0.7 s down to 50.34 s, putting her joint 13th on the respective world all-time list. Only two-time Olympic champion, Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, and Bol had run faster indoors since 2007. The following month, Klaver won her first individual major medal, with silver for the 400 m at the European Indoor Championships held in Istanbul.

• 60 metres indoor – 7.41 (Apeldoorn 2020)

• 100 metres – 11.33 (-0.2 m/s, Breda 2023)
• 200 metres – 22.46 (+1.2 m/s, Chorzów 2023)
  • 200 metres indoor – 22.97 (Metz 2023)
• 400 metres – 49.81 (Chorzów 2023)
  • 400 metres indoor – 50.34 (Apeldoorn 2023)

Relays

• 4 × 400 metres relay – 3:20.87 (Munich 2022) NR
  • 4 × 400 metres relay indoor – 3:25.66 (Istanbul 2023) NR
• 4 × 400 metres relay mixed – 3:09.90 (Eugene, OR 2022) NR

International competitions

National titles

• Dutch Athletics Championships
  • 200 metres: 2020, 2022
• Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships
  • 200 metres: 2017
  • 400 metres: 2020