Olympic gold medals for excuses

Once again, Dutch athletes return home from an international competition with less than stellar performances. JOEP DERKSEN talks about where things went wrong and the reactions of the Olympians.

Four years the Dutch athletes had to prepare themselves for the highlight in their professional careers. The month of July should have been the time that they could finally achieve the highest reward possible: an Olympic (gold) medal. It is true, twenty some athletes indeed obtained a medal and six of them could hold on to the gold medal. But how the mighty have fallen… One athlete after the other failed miserably, yet they all had one thing in common: there were plenty of excuses why they did not do the thing they had to do: winning.

Of course there were a few exceptions to the rule. Marianne Vos won a gold medal in the cycling race and Ranomi Kromowidjojo (what’s in a name) excelled in the 100 meters freestyle swimming. Vos claimed to de Telegraaf before her next race, the time trial, that she was ready to go for the top five. "There’s no pressure anymore and that could be an advantage. I can keep the focus and will do my best." The time trial was a deception: out of 24 women, Vos ended 16. Her comments could be read in the Leidsch Dagblad, "I put too much pressure on myself for the road competition. That race was successful and apparently I relaxed so much that it is difficult to cycle a time trial."

Her male counterparts on the time trial did not do much better. Liewe Westra and Lars Boom wanted to reach the top 10. Liewe came 11th and Boom 22nd. "Actually, I rode very well. It is weird to see that others can cycle even faster," said Liewe to the Algemeen Dagblad and Boom added, "I could not go through the pain barrier. At the moment I cycle better on a road bicycle." Yvonne Hijgenaar and Willy Kanis achieved only a fifth place in the team sprint.

The example of Kromowidjojo was not followed by her fellow swimmers. Sebastiaan Verschuren was 0.08 seconds too slow to claim a bronze medal at the 100 meter freestyle. He lost too much time at the start and the turning point. "It is not so much that I can’t start, I just don’t know how to do it," he once said. He still keeps his dream of a gold medal alive, he told Dutch television. "The race of my life will be in four years: in Rio de Janeiro." Fellow swimmer Nick Driebergen did not make it to the final of the 200 meter backstroke. "This is ridiculous. I have been training for fifteen years and miss the finals by 0.02 second."

Many Dutch judokas aimed for gold; to no avail. Marhinde Verkerk (up to 78 kg) ended fifth. "It’s barely nothing and disappointing, but it was the maximum I could achieve," she told the Algemeen Dagblad. Elisabeth Willeboordse failed as well. She won bronze in Peking, but got stranded in the quarter finals in London. Guillaume Elmont failed in the first round just as fellow judoka Dex Elmont lost the fight for the bronze medal. Henk Grol lost in the quarter final against a German Judoka whom he had always defeated in previous matches. A bronze medal was all Grol could achieve.

The eight Dutch rowers known as the "Holland Acht" missed a medal as well. Rower Sjoerd Hamburger told de Telegraaf, "This is painful. We had a team that could have won silver or bronze behind Germany. It hurts when you pee beside the pot, but we didn’t do anything wrong." Except maybe rowing too slow? Team member Diederik Simon agrees, "We rowed well, but just not good enough."

As captain Floris Evers of the Dutch hockey team that lost the final against Germany, after beating the British emphatically 9-2 told NOS Teletekst, "We really believed in winning. When you don't finish it, you feel the huge difference between gold and silver." Team mate Robert van der Horst agrees, "We could not make a fist. They played better than we did. Unfortunately it's the Germans again who are in our way."

Keeping the dream alive looks like a good thing. However, the dream of the NOC*NSF to be amongst the top 10 nations for winning gold medals cannot be kept alive. A dramatic change in attitude is needed tomake the athletes perform in a much better way. Now the Dutch athletes prepare themselves for the Olympic Games as "just another tournament." Many of their opponents from all over the world however, rise above themselves; they realize that competing at the Olympic Games is most likely a once in a lifetime opportunity. In the United Kingdom, all revenues from the Lottery are invested in the top athletes. The UK reached the top three easily. It is time for the Dutch bobos (persons who consider themselves Very Important) to look overseas.

 

(Gepubliceerd in The Holland Times, september edition).