Since their first 1500 meter race together in 2018, Antoinette de Jong and Femke Kok have competed multiple times in the same event, with de Jong consistently finishing ahead.
Schaatsen.nl, a Dutch sports news outlet, reports on the history of races shared by the two speed skaters.
In 2018, Antoinette de Jong, then not yet married, and Femke Kok both participated in the same 1500 meter speed skating race for the first time. De Jong, aged 23 at the time, won decisively with a time of 1:55.41, while 18-year-old Kok finished in fourteenth place with a time of 2:00.71. Despite finishing several seconds behind, Kok improved her personal record by nine hundredths of a second in that race.
In the following years, de Jong and Kok competed in the 1500 meter event together on four more occasions. Each time, de Jong maintained the lead. Their most recent competition against each other was in December during the Dutch Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OKT). Both skaters, representing Reggeborgh, were paired in the race. Kok held a slight lead in the first 700 meters, and their times were nearly identical at the 1100 meter mark. However, de Jong gained back a full second in the final lap, completing it in 30.5 seconds compared to Kok’s 31.5 seconds. The race ended with de Jong winning by just one hundredth of a second, finishing in 1:53.02 over Kok’s 1:53.03.
