Lineke Claessens-Theeuwes, 45, has competed in masters artistic swimming with PSV Synchro Team Eindhoven since 2008. A European champion in Rome and Belgrade with the 35+ team, she swims solo, duet and team. She spoke to us ahead of the European Aquatics Masters Championships 2026.
Claessens-Theeuwes has a goal that most competitive swimmers don’t have. She and her PSV teammates still want to be performing a group routine when they are in the 80+ age category. “So we have plenty of time ahead of us,” she says, practically.
That kind of long-range thinking is typical of someone who came to serious competition relatively late. Before joining PSV Synchro Team Eindhoven in 2008, Claessens-Theeuwes had spent over 20 years swimming recreationally at Deurnese Watervrienden. The move into masters competition changed the shape of the sport for her, which she says is because it put her in rooms with people who were ambitious.
“You meet swimmers of all levels across the different age categories,” she says. “Former professionals alongside people who started late. And they all share a passion for the sport alongside their private lives.” That mix, she has found, is something that can;t be replicated.
Claessens-Theeuwes has collected several medals throughout her masters career, winning European titles with the 35+ team in Rome 2022 and Belgrade 2024.
She competes across solo, duet and team, but her main motivation for taking to the pool goes beyond mere success. “With masters, it is mainly about meeting each other at competitions,” she says. “If you swim against former professionals, you have nothing but respect for them. You’re not there to beat them.”
She says the tension she does feel before competing is on her own volition. “If I feel nervous, it is mainly because I set the bar high for myself.” She’s learned to accept that a routine that doesn’t land can be tried again at the next competition. “It’s a perspective that takes time to arrive at.”
Away from competition, training functions as something else entirely. She and her team-mates call their sessions their “psychology session.” The few hours a week where the only question is which count to move your arm. “The music starts and for a while you stop thinking about home or work,” she says.
The European Aquatics Masters Championships 2026 will be Claessens-Theeuwes’ seventh European edition – she has competed in Cádiz, Eindhoven, London, Slovenia, Rome and Belgrade, spanning from 2009 to 2024 – and this time her family will be watching. The personal significance of that isn’t lost on her. “I hope I can show them what I have been training for when I am away from home.”
Throughout her career, Claessens-Theeuwes has witnessed several changes to the sport. Of all the observations she has, she outlined her hopes for the rules of masters to remain practical for athletes as they age. “I hope they stay flexible enough to allow masters to continue swimming artistically,” she says.
PSV meanwhile has launched a new masters team this season. Last autumn the club organised the Artistic Swimming Masters League in its home pool in Eindhoven, an international competition returning on October 31 and November 1, 2026.
For Claessens-Theeuwes all of the experience adds up to something she hasn’t yet found a reason to walk away from. She hasn’t had the moment, she says, where stopping seemed like an option. And that’s what she says makes the sport so special.
The European Aquatics Masters Championships Samorin-Bratislava-Graz 2026 takes place this summer from 18-30 August.
Click here for full details of the Championships, including how to register.
Stephen Stanley for European Aquatics
