Jan Just Bos

Who was Jan Just Bos?

Jan Justus "Jan-Just" Bos was a Dutch botanist, television presenter, and rower who competed in the 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics.

Bos studied forestry at the Wageningen University. While a student in Wageningen, he was the coxwain of the Dutch coxed pair, which was eliminated in the repechage at the 1960 Olympics. Four years later he won a bronze medal in the same event, together with Erik Hartsuiker and Herman Rouwé.

From 1968 on he worked at his Wageningen University, becoming a faculty member of the department of plant systematics. He specialized in the flora of Sub-Saharan Africa and spent six years in South Africa, Liberia, Cameroon, and Ethiopia where he collected over 10,000 plants. In 1984 he defended a PhD on a study of the plants of the genus Dracaena in West Africa. In 1985 he led an expedition to Gabon.

In the 1980s he was a presenter for the Dutch nature television series Ja, natuurlijk.