Alida van Daalen (; born 12 April 2002) is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in shot put and discus.
Early life Alida van Daalen was born on 12 April 2002. She is the daughter of Dutch Olympic athlete Jacqueline Goormachtigh.
Van Daalen was brought up in initially in Suriname, but lives with the pigment disease vitiligo, which causes her skin to show white spots and does not tolerate the sun well, and her family relocated to Rotterdam.
In 2022, she started at the University of Florida in the United States and began competing for the Florida Gators. She won the shot put at the SEC Indoor Championships and SEC Outdoor Championships and placed fourth at NCAA Division I Indoor Championships and NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Career Van Daalen competed at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She then won bronze in the shot put and silver in the discus, at the 2018 European Athletics U18 Championships in Győr.
Competing at the 2021 European Athletics U20 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, she won the silver medal in the shot put and the discus events.
Competing at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Espoo, Finland, she won the gold medal in both the shot put and the discus events. She won the shot put with a European U23 leading distance of 18.32m. She was selected for the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August 2023.
She competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris in the shot put and discus.
She set a meeting record of 65.24 metres to win the discus at the 2025 SEC Championships in May 2025. In September 2025, she competed at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan, reaching the final and placing eleventh overall.
On 9 April 2026 in Ramona, Oklahoma, she set a new personal best for the discus throw of 67.99 metres. On 12 April, she improved again to 69.17m in Ramona. In May, she won the discus throw at the SEC Championships, before throwing 69.31m in the NCAA East Regional at Lexington, to move to third on the all-time collegiate list behind Jorinde van Klinken and Jayden Ulrich. On 13 June, she set a new meeting record to win the women's discus with a throw of 65.98 meters at the 2026 NCAA Outdoor Championships. On 3 July, she placed third overall in the discus throw at the 2026 Prefontaine Classic. Competing at the 2026 European Championships in Birmingham in August, van Daalen, was fourth with 64.22m in the discus throw. At the championships she was also a finalist in the women's shot put.
Statistics Information based on her World Athletics profile unless noted otherwise.
Personal bests Outdoor Shot put: 18.32 m (Espoo, 2023) Discus throw: 69.31m. (Lexington, Kentucky, 2026)
Indoor Shot put: 18.66 m (Fayetteville, Arkansas, 2023)
International competitions 2017European Youth Summer Olympic FestivalGyőr, Hungary1stShot put (3 kg)16.23 m2ndDiscus throw48.82 m2018European U18 ChampionshipsGyőr, Hungary3rdShot put (3kg)17.08 m2ndDiscus throw52.93 mSummer Youth OlympicsBuenos Aires, Argentina4thDiscus throw47.33 m53.07 m2019European U20 ChampionshipsBorås, Sweden1stDiscus throw55.92 m2021European Throwing CupSplit, Croatia17th"European Throwing Cup Results 2021", European Athletic Association, 2021. . Retrieved 17 August 2023.Discus throw54.99 mEuropean U20 ChampionshipsTallinn, Estonia2ndDiscus throw55.63 m2ndShot put16.56 m2022European Throwing Cup, U23 EventsLeiria, Portugal5thShot put15.80 m2ndDiscus throw55.02 mEuropean ChampionshipsMunich, Germany18th"European Championships Munich 2022 Women's Discus Throw Qualification Results", European Athletic Association, 2022. . Retrieved 17 August 2023.Discus throw56.05 m2023European U23 ChampionshipsEspoo, Finland1stShot put18.32 m1stDiscus throw56.77 mWorld ChampionshipsBudapest, Hungary19th (q)Shot put17.93 m2024Olympic GamesParis, France26th (q)Shot put16.53 m16th (q)Discus throw62.19 m2025World ChampionshipsTokyo, Japan9thDiscus throw62.24 m2026European ChampionshipsBirmingham, United Kingdom4thDiscus throw64.22 m
References
External links
Alida van Daalen at Atletiek.nl (archived)