[3] Born in Maastricht, Limburg, he is the son of Cees-Rein van den Hoogenband and Astrid Verver, a former Dutch 800 m freestyle silver medalist at the European Junior Championships.

Before the Atlanta Games, Astrid van den Hoogenband, who was coaching the Dutch team, became frustrated with the swimmers representing the Netherlands, feeling they had much potential but would not be able to live up to it due to lack of adequate support.

[citation needed] After Astrid threatened to remove Pieter from the sport, Cees created a small foundation and signed up 20 initial sponsors who each paid $2,500 to fund a team trainer.

After winning 6 gold medals at the 1999 European Championships, Van den Hoogenband was one of the favourites at the 2000 Summer Olympics, but his adversaries were formidable.

In the 200 m freestyle he faced the world record holder, Australian youngster Ian Thorpe, favourite of the home crowd in Sydney.

In the 100 m freestyle, Van den Hoogenband again set a world record in the semi-finals and won his second gold medal, defeating the 1992 and 1996 champion, Alexander Popov.

Van den Hoogenbands' 46.70, however, remained as the fastest textile relay split until it was topped in 2015 by Cameron McEvoy of Australia.

He had disappointing performances in both the 100 and 200 freestyle events though, finishing runner up to Alexander Popov and Ian Thorpe respectively, with considerably slow times.

At the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, Van den Hoogenband won a silver medal in the 200 m freestyle behind Michael Phelps.

[10] The swimming arena in the sporting centre of Eindhoven was named the "Pieter van den Hoogenband Zwemstadion".

[14] Despite a fierce rivalry, Van den Hoogenband is a good friend of Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe.