Jacques Rogge

Jacques Rogge, Count Rogge (born 2 May 1942), is a Belgian sports bureaucrat. He is the eighth and current President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Life and Career

Born in Ghent, Rogge is by profession an orthopaedic surgeon and was educated at the University of Ghent. Rogge competed in yachting in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics, and played on the Belgian national rugby union team. Rogge served as President of the Belgian Olympic Committee from 1989 to 1992, and as President of the European Olympic Committees from 1989 to 2001. He became a member of the IOC in 1991 and joined its Executive Board in 1998. He was knighted in 1992, and in 2002 elevated to the noble rank of Count by King Albert II of the Belgians.

In his free time, Count Rogge is known to admire modern art and is an avid reader of historical and scientific literature. He is married to Anne; they have two grown-up children. His son Philippe is the current delegation leader of the Belgian Olympic Committee.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Elio Di Rupo

Elio Di Rupo (b. 18 July 1951) is a Belgian social-democratic politician of Italian heritage. He is the Prime Minister of Belgium, and leader of the Socialist Party (PS). He became leader on 6 December 2011 and heads the Di Rupo I Government. Elio Di Rupo is the first francophone to hold the office since Paul Vanden Boeynants in 1979, as well as the country's first socialist Prime Minister since Edmond Leburton left office in 1974.

Background and Early Life

Di Rupo is the son of two Italian immigrants. His father was born in San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore in the region of Abruzzo. Elio is the only child who was born in Belgium; his brothers and sisters were all born in Italy. When he was one year old, his father died in a car crash and his illiterate Roman Catholic mother was unable to raise all seven children. Because of financial reasons, three children were raised in the orphanage nearby.

Personal Life

Di Rupo describes himself as an "atheist, rationalist, and Free mason." He is fluent in three languages: Italian, French and English. He is taking classes to improve his Dutch due to it being Belgium's most widely spoken language.

Di Rupo came out as gay in 1996, and when confronted with the accusation that he was gay, he responded "Yes. So what?" He is the first openly gay man to be head of a national government in modern times.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Justine Henin

Justine Henin ( born 1 June 1982), formerly known as Justine Henin-Hardenne (2002–2007), is a retired professional Belgian tennis player and former World No. 1.

Henin won 43 WTA singles titles and seven Grand Slam singles titles, including four French Open titles, one Australian Open title, and two US Open titles. She has also won the year-ending Sony Ericsson Championships twice and the singles gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Tennis experts cite her mental toughness, the completeness and variety of her game, her footspeed and footwork, and her one-handed backhand (which John McEnroe has described as the best single-handed backhand in the women's or men's game) as the principal reasons for her success.

Critics and all-time-great players have made testament to Henin's talent. Upon Henin's first retirement from the WTA in the early part of the 2008 season, Billie Jean King said that "pound for pound, Henin is the best tennis player of her generation." as well as that "Justine is the best women's athlete I've ever seen." Andre Agassi said of Henin, "Justine Henin is one of the most talented women ever to have played the game of tennis." In 2007, 18 time Grand Slam winner Martina Navratilova said that "She is head and shoulders above everyone else right now." John McEnroe concurred, saying that Henin is "The player I most like to watch." Henin made a return to the WTA in early 2010, losing the final of the Australian Open in only her 2nd tournament back.

On 26 January 2011, she announced that she had been forced to retire from professional tennis once again because of an elbow injury.

In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time.

Personal Life

Justine Henin was born in Liège. Her father is José Henin; her mother, Françoise Rosière, was a French and history teacher who died when Justine was 12 years old. She has two brothers (David and Thomas) and a sister (Sarah).

When Justine was two, her family moved to a house in Rochefort, situated next to the local tennis club, where she played tennis for the first time.

Henin's mother routinely took the young Henin across the border to France to watch the French Open. Henin saw the 1992 final involving her idol Steffi Graf and Monica Seles. Although Graf lost, the experience impressed Henin.

In 1995, shortly after her mother's death, Henin met her coach Carlos Rodriguez who guided her career both before her retirement in 2008 and during her 2010 comeback. Following a conflict between Justine and her father[clarification needed] over her tennis career and her relationship with Pierre-Yves Hardenne, Rodriguez soon became not only her trainer but in some ways a second father figure.

On 16 November 2002, Henin married Pierre-Yves in the Château de Lavaux-Sainte-Anne. On 4 January 2007, Henin withdrew from the upcoming tournaments in Australia, including the Australian Open, due to personal problems. and she also resumed her maiden name, Justine Henin, instead of Justine Henin-Hardenne.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Kim Clijsters

Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters ( born 8 June 1983) is a Belgian professional tennis player. As of 7 November 2011, Clijsters is ranked No. 13 in singles. Clijsters is a former World No. 1 in both singles and doubles.

Clijsters has won 41 WTA singles titles and 11 WTA doubles titles. She has won four Grand Slam singles titles: three at the US Open, in 2005, 2009 and 2010 and one at the Australian Open in 2011. She has also been runner-up in four Grand Slam singles tournaments, and won the WTA Tour Championships singles title in 2002, 2003 and 2010. In doubles, she won the French Open and Wimbledon titles in 2003. Clijsters announced her retirement with immediate effect on 6 May 2007, but almost two years later, on 26 March 2009, she publicly declared her intent to return to the WTA tour for the 2009 summer hard court season. In only her third tournament back, she won her second US Open title, becoming the first unseeded player and wildcard to win the tournament, and the first mother to win a major since Evonne Goolagong in 1980.

In June 2011, TIME magazine named her one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future".

According to Forbes in August 2011, she became the fifth highest-paid female athlete over the past year.

Personal life

Clijsters was born on 8 June 1983, in Bilzen, Limburg, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. She is the daughter of Lei Clijsters, a former international footballer, and Els Vandecaetsbeek, a former national gymnastics champion. Lei Clijsters died of skin cancer on 4 January 2009. Clijsters says that she inherited footballer's legs from her father and a gymnast's flexibility from her mother. Kim's younger sister Elke finished 2002 as the ITF World Junior Doubles champion and retired in 2004 after back injuries.

In December 2003, Clijsters announced her engagement to Australian Lleyton Hewitt, but their relationship ended in October 2004. Clijsters is still affectionately nicknamed "Aussie Kim" by Australians. In October 2006, Clijsters announced her engagement to American basketball player Brian Lynch, who is based in Clijsters' hometown of Bree. In an interview with Sportweekend (a sports programme on Belgian Flemish television), Clijsters said that she was retiring to start a family. Clijsters and Lynch married privately on 13 July 2007, at 6 am at the Bree city hall. She was married by the mayor, with sister Elke, Lynch's brother Pat Lynch, and both sets of parents present.

Clijsters gave birth to a daughter on 27 February 2008, at 1:35 pm at the Vesalius hospital in Tongeren, Belgium

From : www.wikipedia.org

Albert II of Belgium

Albert II (born 6 June 1934) is the King of the Belgians, a constitutional monarch. He is a member of the royal house "of Belgium"; formerly this house was named Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He is the uncle of the current reigning Duke of Luxembourg, Henri.

Birth

He is the second son of King Leopold III (1901–1983) and his first wife, Astrid of Sweden (1905–1935). He ascended to the throne in 1993, following the death of his older brother, King Baudouin. His godparents were Prince Felix of Luxembourg and his paternal grandmother, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. He is the first cousin of King Harald V of Norway, Princess Astrid of Norway, and Princess Ragnhild of Norway.

Biography

Prince Albert was born in Stuyvenberg Castle, Brussels. On 10 May 1940, at the time when Belgium was being invaded, Prince Albert, his elder sister Princess Joséphine-Charlotte and his elder brother Prince Baudouin, left the country for France and later Spain. The Prince and the Princess returned to Belgium on 2 August 1940. They continued their studies until 1944, either at Laeken, or at the Chateau of Ciergnon in the Ardennes. In June 1944, at the time of the Allied landings, King Leopold III, Princess Lilian – whom he married in 1941 – and the royal children were deported by the Germans to Hirschstein, Germany, and later to Strobl, Austria, where they were liberated by the American Army on 7 May 1945. 

Due to the political situation in Belgium, King Leopold and his family moved to the villa "Le Reposoir" in Pregny, Switzerland, when they left Austria in October 1945 and stayed until July 1950. During that time, Prince Albert would continue his education in a secondary school in Geneva. King Leopold III, accompanied by Prince Baudouin and Prince Albert, returned to Belgium on 22 July 1950.

He is the 1,292nd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Austria and the 1,191st Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain in 1994.

Marriage and family

On 2 July 1959, he married in Brussels, Princess Paola Ruffo di Calabria (born 11 September 1937). She is the daughter of Fulco VIII, Prince Ruffo di Calabria, 6th Duke of Guardia Lombarda and his wife, Countess Luisa Gazelli di Rossana e di Sebastiano (1896–1989). Together they have three children, two sons and a daughter:

Illegitimate daughter

Delphine Boël (born 1968), a sculptor living in London, is alleged to be the illegitimate daughter of the King. The claims originated in a Belgian satirical magazine in 1997 and were repeated two years later in a biography written by 18-year-old schoolboy nl:Mario Danneels. Her mother is a Belgian aristocrat, Sybille, Baroness de Selys Longchamps, who was married at the time of Delphine's birth to Jacques Boël. Delphine has 2 children, Joséphine O'Hare and Oscar O'Hare, by her American companion, James O'Hare. Sybille de Selys Longchamps and Delphine both refused to comment on the claim, and palace officials called it "malevolent gossip".

From : www.wikipedia.org