Swimming

During the early 1960s Terpstra was a well-known freestyle swimmer in the Netherlands, specializing in the 100 meters. She participated in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome where she came sixth in the 100m Freestyle, and fourth in the 4x100 Medley Relay. Following the Olympics she joined the HZ&PC swim team in The Hague. While a member of this team she was again chosen to be an Olympic athlete for the Netherlands and won two medals at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo: the bronze medal in the 4x100 metres Freestyle Relay and the silver in the 4x100 metres Medley Relay (together with Pauline van der Wildt (starting), Toos Beumer (second relay) en Winnie van Weerdenburg (third relay)). At her only individual start, on the 100m Freestyle, she finished in fourth position in the final.

In addition to her Olympic exploits, Terpstra won the 1962 European championships and was champion of the Netherlands several times.

Interim years

After her swimming career Terpstra became a teacher, teaching Dutch to Chinese immigrants. She later became a sports journalist.

Politics

In 1977 Terpstra was elected to the parliament for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), just barely making it into parliament on a seat appointed to the VVD in the fractional division. She remained in parliament through 2003 though, with a four-year break (1994–1998) during which she served as state secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport in the Kok-I cabinet.

Upon leaving parliament in 2003, she was the senior member of the House, having been re-elected with a large number of preference votes each term (311.000 in 1994).

Sports official

On 21 October 2003 Terpstra was elected chairperson of the NOC*NSF, beating out Ruud Vreeman (the NOC*NSF board-nominated candidate) in the election. As chair in 2005 she was the first to present the new Fanny Blankers-Koen Trophy, which was named for legendary Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen. Terpstra presented the award to Anton Geesink, Sjoukje Dijkstra, Nico Rienks and Ard Schenk in the new skating rink in Turin, a few months before the start of the 2006 Winter Olympics. She was supposed to award an FBK Trophy to Johan Cruijff as well, but he couldn't make it due to obligations at the pool drawing for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Leipzig.

During her tenure with NOC*NSF she was always well known for being present at every major sporting event in which Dutch athletes competed and for being exuberantly enthusiastic at every success.^[1] Terpstra retired from NOC*NSF in May 2010.

Quick Facts Medal record, Women's swimming ...

Erica Terpstra

Erica Terpstra (right) at the Rome Olympics
Medal record
Women's swimming
Representing the  Netherlands
Olympic Games
	1964 Tokyo	4x100 m medley relay
	1964 Tokyo	4x100 m freestyle relay
European Championships (LC)
	1962 Leipzig	4×100 m freestyle

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