KORSTANJE Nyls

General
USA EXPERIENCE
He lived in Boston, MA, United States of America, from age six to nine after his family moved there when his father took a job as a scientific researcher in the city. He returned to the United States of America when he took up a scholarship to swim for North Carolina State University in 2018. "America is a very sports-driven country. I had already experienced that as a little boy when we lived [in Boston]. Sport is very important in the culture; athletes there are really superstars, like the way we look at singers here in the Netherlands. Swimming is relatively small in America, especially if you compare it to baseball, American football or basketball, but because sport is so alive there, there is still a lot of funding for it and it's very professional. The main drive in America is not the performance of the individual, but of the team. Pieter van den Hoogenband once said that he had a great need for a team during the Olympic Games in Sydney, and that he therefore spent a lot of time with the water polo players. I recognise that - when you work as a team, it brings a lot of fun with it." (teamnl.org, 14 Oct 2020)

COMPARISONS TO PIETER VAN DEN HOOGENBAND
At age 11 he broke Dutch youth records set by Pieter van den Hoogenband and Maarten van der Weijden, which led to the Dutch media dubbing him 'The new Pieter van Hoogenband'. After hearing about Korstanje, van den Hoogenband got in touch and began to act as a personal mentor. Korstanje welcomes comparisons between himself and two-time Olympic champion van den Hoogenband, but has also complained of added pressure due to the high expectations. "I am sometimes called the new Pieter van den Hoogenband. That is a great honour, but also a burden on your shoulders. If you achieve less than him, no one will be impressed. What he has done is very special. He has been named the greatest Olympian by the NOS [Dutch Olympic Committee]. The bond between me and Pieter is like a fan and a rock star - I really look up to him. During the EYOF [European Youth Summer Olympic Festival] in 2015, he was my chef de mission. I won gold there, and he was there watching live. That was very special. In the run-up to Tokyo [2020], my qualifying was not ideal, so I emailed him and asked if he could help. He sent me an extensive email back with advice. It's very special when someone makes an effort for you in that way." (teamnl.org, 01 Dec 2020)

PHYSICAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
As a sprint swimmer, he has said that his lightweight build is one of his biggest strengths, while his relatively small feet are one of his biggest weaknesses. In 2020 he weighed 83kg, an increase of six kilograms from when he was a junior, which he said is partly due to eating fattening foods while studying in the United States of America. "Yes, if I could change one thing about my body, it would be bigger feet and bigger hands. Those men with big feet [such as his idols, Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe and Dutch swimmer Luc Kroon] - they swim like they're wearing fins. Yes, I've grown six kilos, so I'm not a skinny boy anymore. But as for muscles, I'm not a big boy like [Dutch simmer] Kyle Stolk either - he's twice as strong as me. But my strongest point is, of course, that I am light and need relatively little energy to travel through the water fast." (volksrant.nl, 04 Dec 2020)

SIBLING RIVALRY
He has a healthy rivalry with his brother Tim, who is four years younger than him, and has also represented the Netherlands in swimming. "Tim broke a lot of my early childhood records. It would have been great if we had been the same age, because then we would have had a lot of fun in the pool. We have that now though, and it's nice to have similar goals between us. During the [COVID-19] lockdown, we played a lot of sport together, improved our strength in our [home-made] gym shed, and cycled hard all around Nijmegen." (teamnl.org, 01 Dec 2020)