• DSM becomes official sponsor of Dutch swimmer Marleen Veldhuis
• Broad range of innovations for Dutch Olympic Team
• Innovations in the pipeline

DSM today announces that it has become official sponsor of Dutch top swimmer Marleen Veldhuis. On the threshold of the Olympics, at the Holland Heineken Huis in Beijing, DSM and the Dutch Olympic Committee/Dutch Sports Federation (NOC*NSF) are presenting the complete range of innovations specially developed for and in collaboration with the Dutch athletes from the various sports disciplines. The innovations have been geared to the specific conditions that the athletes will be facing during the Summer Games in China.

Sponsoring Marleen Veldhuis
As innovation partner in sports of NOC*NSF, DSM is supporting the Dutch Olympic Team. In addition, DSM is sponsoring a number of individual athletes. In close collaboration with the athletes and their coaches, DSM is working on innovations in the fields of nutrition and materials that could help boost the development of top level sports in general and the performances of the individual athletes in particular.

‘We are proud to support this ambitious sportswoman, with her great track record, on the road to Olympic victory. Our support will continue beyond this year’s Games. Together with Marleen we will be looking for new innovations. We wish Marleen every success in her Olympic series!’ said Jan Zuidam, deputy chairman of the DSM Managing Board. 

Marleen Veldhuis is the latest member to join the DSM Unlimited Sports Team, which further includes the Dutch sailors Marcelien de Koning, Lobke Berkhout, Sven Coster and Kalle Coster, Dutch wheelchair tennis player Sharon Walraven, the Swiss fencing team, the Chinese national judokas and the US indoor and beach volleyball teams.

Olympic innovations for Beijing 2008
As innovation partner in sports of NOC*NSF, DSM has developed a wide variety of innovations in the field of nutrition and materials in close collaboration with NOC*NSF, the athletes and their coaches. In this development work, DSM has paid special attention to the conditions that the athletes will be facing in China. For example, for the Dutch Olympic sailors who will be competing in a series of races off the coast of Qingdao, a new class 470 sailboat has been developed that will lose less energy in the waves because of its special shape and the properties of the special composite material of which it is made. As a result, the boat will maintain more speed in the short waves characteristic of the Qingdao coastal waters.

In addition, DSM has developed a powdered form of the recovery product PeptoPro®, which is easier to transport and preserve. In total, 20,000 servings of PeptoPro powder have been shipped to China, where they will help Dutch athletes speed up their muscle recovery process. This is particularly important for athletes who take part in a series of events.

DSM has also developed various cooling products to enable athletes to deliver a top performance and recover as quickly as possible. During the Games, the Dutch team will be using more than 100 cooling vests and various cooling baths. These products help regulate the athletes’ body temperature and perceived temperature before and after athletic events (comfort cooling) and enable rapid cooling to promote recovery after intense exercise (after-cooling).

Innovations in the pipeline
During the meeting at the Holland Heineken Huis, DSM presented a new product to Erica Terpstra (chair of NOC*NSF). The product was the winning concept in the Olympic Innovation Contest that DSM held among its employees. It is a special drink device that enables its user to personalize his/her nutrition (‘Personalized Packaging’). As such athletes can adjust the concentration of the PeptoPro recovery product according to their individual needs.

The fact that the Olympics are about to begin does not mean that DSM’s development work on new materials has come to an end. DSM works on special sprocket wheels made of Stanyl®, a lightweight, low-friction, wear-resistant and strong engineering plastic that is widely used in the automotive industry. This could be a breakthrough in the development of sprocket wheels for racing cyclists and also for Paralympic disciplines such as handcycling. Currently a series of sprockets are being made, which will be subjected to tests by the handbikers. Also cyclist Theo Bos has been involved in the preparation phase.

DSM and sports
Sport is about performing at a top level, day in, day out. About passion, ambition, wanting to be the best, about continuous improvement and teamwork. As such, sport embodies a number of DSM’s core values. Just like sportspeople DSM is continuously pushing its limits: Unlimited.DSM. Innovation is one of the main spearheads of DSM’s strategic course, with its focus on Life Sciences and Materials Sciences, and it is equally important in the world of sports: innovations in the fields of nutrition and materials can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Innovation is our Sport™ is therefore an apt title for DSM’s program in the field of sports.

DSM and NOC*NSF have been “Partners in Sport” since 2001. In the run-up to Beijing 2008, DSM has stepped up its efforts in the field of sports and innovation even further in the hope of making a major contribution to the success of the Dutch Olympic team during the Summer Games of 2008. For more information please visit the new site: sports.dsm.com.