 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.She pleaded with Cees to take action, as he carried much weight from his professional connections.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.