Maya Kingma: Background, career highlights, quotes
Dutch triathlete Maya Kingma is known for her impressive swim speed and that surprise Leeds World Series win in 2021, but what else? Here's everything you need to know…
She’s one of the fastest swimmers in women’s Olympic-distance triathlon racing, but what else do we know about Dutch triathlete Maya Kingma? Let’s find out…
Who is Maya Kingma?
Casting even the quickest of glances at her race results, it’s not difficult to deduce that Maya Kingma has something of a swimming pedigree.
Rarely is she not first out of the water, drawing on the talent and speed that saw her crowned as a national swimming champion in her younger days. The Dutchwoman is also pretty handy of two wheels.
Maya’s running, though, has taken more work. Her comparatively unremarkable junior triathlon career – certainly unremarkable when compared to the palmares of those she’d later compete against in world series events – was the result of not being able to convert any advantage once she’d slipped into her running shoes.
This was also the case in the first seasons of her elite career but, by 2019, Maya was taking in lungfuls of the rarefied air of the WTS top 10.
Her determination to conquer the third discipline was possibly born out of her studies: she holds a degree in psychology and a masters in cognitive neuroscience.
By 2021 – what’s undoubtedly been her best season to date – she was able to stay in touch with the best on the run.
See here her first (and still only) victory in the WTCS series, when she powered away from such a strong competitor in Jess Learmonth to take gold in Leeds and put her, temporarily at least, at the top of the series rankings.
This victory helped Maya to overall fourth at season’s end, in a year when she also became Dutch national champion for the first time.
There have also been successes as part of the Netherlands’ mixed relay team, including a European championship bronze and fourth place in the format’s debut at the Tokyo Olympics.
An Olympic medal – most likely at relay than individually – could be Maya’s for the taking come Paris this summer.
How old is Maya Kingma?
Maya Kingma was born on 8 September 1995, making her 28 years of age.
Maya Kingma’s career highlights
October 2015: First top 10 as an elite
With seventh place at the European Cup and Mediterranean Championships in the Sicilian town of Catania, Maya registers her maiden appearance in an elite top 10.
Second out of the water, a higher finish is missed with her run being three minutes slower than winner Summer Rappaport.
April 2017: Maiden elite podium place
In the Moroccan capital of Rabat, Maya takes second place in an African Cup sprint race. Having posted the fastest swim and bike legs, she’s overtaken on the run by Spain’s Sara Perez Sala.
June 2018: Another notable European Cup performance
Maya secures her third European Cup top 10 with seventh place on home turf in Holten. Again, her success is due to the first third of the race where she again posts the fastest swim split.
May 2019: A debut WTS top-10 appearance
Another seventh place for Maya, but this time in Yokohama, in the more prestigious WTS series. Although first of the water again, she’s unable to make an impression come race end on the dominant US presence, with Katie Zaferes, Summer Rappaport and Taylor Spivey taking the podium places.
June 2019: European champs bronze
In the southern Netherlands town of Weert, Maya and the rest of the Dutch mixed relay squad use home advantage to take bronze in the European championships behind France and Germany.
September 2020: Best WTS finish to date
Improving on her seventh place in Yokohama the previous year, Maya takes sixth in a highly competitive field at the one-off world champs race in Hamburg, Germany. Her scalps including Jess Learmonth, Cassandre Beaugrand and Léonie Periault.
The following week, her fine form continues with a bronze in a World Cup race in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic.
May 2021: First climb onto WTCS podium
The strong results of last season’s truncated schedule show no sign of fading into 2021 when Maya takes her first-ever WTCS medal, a bronze in Yokohama behind Taylor Knibb and Summer Rappaport.
June 2021: Gold in Leeds
And things improve still further when, three weeks after Yokohama, Maya takes her maiden WTCS victory in Leeds, ahead of the home favourites Jess Learmonth and Sophie Coldwell.
Double world champion Flora Duffy is also among the defeated, with Maya’s victory secured by a much-improved run, on which she broke away from Learmonth.
The win, combined with the bronze in Japan, puts the flying Dutchwoman at the top of the WTCS standings.
July 2021: Maya just misses an Olympic medal
Having come 11th in the women’s race four days earlier, Maya is a key member of the Dutch mixed relay team that takes fourth in Tokyo behind the dominant British, American and French squads.
July 2021: The queen of the Netherlands is crowned
In her first appearance in the Dutch national championships, Maya decimates the rest of the field, recording the fastest splits in all three disciplines.
August 2021: Just off the series podium
A third WTCS finish (this time, sixth in Edmonton) secures an overall fourth place for Maya behind Flora Duffy and the two Taylors – Knibb and Spivey. She is, though, the highest-placed European in this series in what has been her breakthrough season.
May 2022: Kicking off a rock-solid season
Maya starts 2022 in solid form with another top-five finish in Yokohama. It’s the first of four WTCS top 10s this calendar year – seventh in Hamburg, ninth in Cagliari, sixth in Bermuda – consolidating her position as one of the series’ most consistent performers.
May 2023: Still big in Japan
A return to Maya’s happy hunting-ground of Yokohama yields another top-10 finish when she beats Olympic gold medallist Georgia Taylor-Brown to sixth, but this is the only notable success for her in the entire season.
Maya Kingma in quotes
On winning her maiden WTCS title in Leeds in 2021: “I am just so surprised. On the run, I told myself that I had to try to leave Jess [Learmonth] behind in the last kilometre on the downhill. I tried and it worked!”
On the introduction of a super-sprint eliminator format into the WTCS series in Montreal in 2021 which, despite being series leader, she refused to participate in: “This is a totally different discipline within triathlon, much as Olympic-distance racing is to a full-distance Ironman. Therefore it has no place within our world championship series … This format should not have been forced upon us.”
On her sixth place in the 2021 WTCS Grand Final, giving her fourth place overall: “I’m incredibly happy with my performances this year. Even though it’s just off the podium, I did not expect to even win a race or to fight for the overall podium until the very last kilometre of the series.”
What’s next for Maya Kingma?
At 28, there is still plenty of time for Maya to stamp her authority on the WTCS series and repeat her successes of the 2021 season.
After coming 48th in the Olympic test event in Paris last summer, any hopes that she may be holding for Olympic joy surely rest as part of the Dutch mixed relay team that’s out to improve on their fourth place in Tokyo three years ago and therefore get among the medals.
Top image credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Nige Tassell
Freelance sportswriter 
