[1] Classified as an S14 swimmer, for athletes with an intellectual impairment, she was part of the Netherlands team chosen to compete on home soil at Eindhoven for the 2010 IPC Swimming World Championships.

Entered in her favoured 100m backstroke and 200m freestyle, she took both events making her a double gold medal world champion at the age of 16.

[2] Two years later van der Kulk was back representing the Netherlands, this time in London for the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

In the final later that evening she swam an improved time of 1:09.50 just 4 hundredths of a second behind second placed Taylor Corry, to give van der Kulk the bronze, her first Paralympic medal.

By winning the first heat in the inaugural SB14 100m backstroke, van der Kulk, by default, set a new Paralympic record.