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Ed Van Amsterdam Bodybuilder

I was born in Amsterdam October 30th, 1972. My proud parents are Cees and Martina (Ineke) van Amsterdam. I had an elder brother as well, called Danny. I was a sturdy baby of nine pounds. After the delivery at the hospital I came home for the first time. We lived in the Marnix Street. The Marnix Street is situated in downtown Amsterdam, also known as the Jordan quarter. My parents owned a cleaning company, which was also called Van Amsterdam.

I grew up in a real soccer family. At the age of 4, I already played soccer games together with my brother. I spent a lot of time with my brother and played soccer with all my friends against other blocks. In the evening, we would continue with fistfights. My mother had a hard time raising two street rascals. We basically tried everything that was not allowed.

After having passed through kindergarten I went to the elementary school. At this school I learned to know my first love. Man, what a strange feeling! Despite all the mischief I still was a beloved pupil. During all these school years, I played soccer at the OSV club, where my talent was noticed by the AJAX youth coach. After a selection game I was invited to play soccer with AJAX.

A deep valley approached in my young life, when my parents broke up. My father disappeared from our lives and I haven't seen him again ever since. My mother had to do everything on her own. Nevertheless my brother and I did not lack anything. My mother gave us everything possible, for which I am eternally grateful.

In Amsterdam, a so-called thick tire race was organized, an amateur race with bikes. It did not matter what kind of bike you had, as long as you could participate. I went to the start with my bike. "Bang", and off we went. I fell twice, but I won the race. With the cup I went to my mother and told her what I would like to become in the future: a racing cyclist. As we had no money for a racing bicycle, I often delivered newspapers. Eventually - a nice bike! In races I won many victories.

The elementary school was over. I had to move on to high school. As I took a great interest in animals, I chose the agricultural high school, one of the benefits of the Dutch educational system. I passed through this high school very easily and graduated in the end. During wintertime, when the racing season was over, I did a lot of cross-country racing, but I was bothered by bronchitis, so I started to box and do fitness workout in the winter. I was 12 years old at that time.

The next year I became the Dutch champion as a racing cyclist. I then figured that I had to do the exact same preparations as the year before, so I went back to the sports school. After the first weeks of training I saw some muscles grow. I soon became addicted to the iron. Despite all the positive perspectives as a racing cyclist, I quit biking. I then knew what I really wanted to become: a body-builder, that was the thing to do. The confirmation for me personally was so strong that I did not want to do anything else but training, eating and sleeping. I went to watch a body-building contest for the first time. It was the Grand Prix in Holland. I saw Berry de Mey and other pros for the very first time. I found it so unnaturally beautiful, that I couldn't get it out of my mind ever since.

After graduating from the agricultural high school I went to vocational education for three years, until I had to join the military. I knew that it was going to be hard to keep training during military service. How could I solve that? The next thing I heard was that the police academy would provide a delay for military service during training. After a long application procedure I was accepted at the North-Holland police academy. I had to study a lot, but it wasn't heavy. There was plenty of time to train, eat and sleep.

At the age of 17, I had my first contest. I became Dutch champion for juniors. For participating in the European championships I traveled to Milan, Italy. Yes, I became European champion. After increasing daily training sessions and eating more and more I became more and more fanatic. I started to read more on the topic, including Arnold Schwarzenegger's diary. In one chapter he wrote that he would go squat in the forest for an entire day. I imitated him and as a matter of fact, I couldn't walk the next week or two. The more I did, yet I was never satisfied.

I graduated from the police academy. Everyone was proud. My mother already knew that this was not the right profession for me and in retrospect she was right, of course. We threw our caps in the air and joined the force. The work was fun and I worked on a nice team. Yet I wasn't able to concentrate on my work very well. I considered working overtime as a danger for training. When interrogating suspects, I was eating more than typing reports. After having experienced a lot of good police work I still quit. I resigned before I had opted for purchasing a sports school. At that time I participated in one match per year, thinking one match per year was enough. One of the reasons was that I could build up during a longer period of time this way. Fortunately I could indeed buy the sports school. Finally I had some rest and was able to focus 100% on body-building. In 1999, a part of my dream came true. I became a professional at the IFBB. Now we move on to the other part of my dream, 'Mr. Olympia'.

Hobbies

Apart from body-building I have a few hobbies. Yet, body-building lifestyle leaves little time for other things. One of my hobbies is frequently visiting the zoo. I am a real animal lover. I also like to support animal protection associations such as WWF, IFAW and Greenpeace. Another hobby of mine is horse riding. Amsterdam has a big park where I often go horse riding together with my wife. I also consider swimming one of my hobbies. I am crazy about swimming. Whenever I go on vacation, the country of destination has to have good weather. Body-building is more than just a hobby - it is my whole life.

Love

The woman of my life.....The 10th of July 1993, I was working as a door-keeper. Just after midnight two blondes came in, one of which making my heart beat faster. As a matter of fact, I did not even dare to talk to her, yes, I had fallen in love. This really was love at first sight. As she was attracted to me as well, we only waited for the first step. Apparently she got tired of waiting, so she came to me instead. We had our first date right away. She was the one and only for me! From that moment on we were known as Eddy & Deborah.

Marriage, children

On September 19th 1997, we said 'yes'. This was one of the most beautiful days of my life. We got married at the Naarden-Vesting town hall and our marriage was confirmed in church. After the wedding our family wasn't complete yet, apart from the cat (Simba) and the dog (Mickey). On September 26th 1998, our beautiful daughter Zefanja was born, a healthy girl, weight 8 pounds and height 1 ft 8. After six months, Zefanja already accompanied us to the Night of the Champions, New York, as a regular supporter of her father together with her mother. Five years after Zefanja was born a new member of the 'Van Amsterdam family' was born. At the 19th of November 2003 Spencer was born, a healthy son of 56 cm and 4180 grams. It's obvious he is Ed's son... he is big, laughs a lot and loves women!

Faith
When I learned to know Deborah's parents, I heard they were Christians and attended a church. I thought this was strange and hypocrite, until I became familiar with it by going to church myself. Through this my life changed a lot. I receive tremendous support and strength to go on and pray for this with my family very often. It is a very special feeling that there is Someone out there to support you in hard times and supporting the decisions you have to make in life sometimes.

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