Marcel Bosker (24) is starting to feel worse by the minute. They said they would call at noon, but it’s after two and he hasn’t heard back yet. It just takes.
At half past four he is fed up. He still had to cycle today, so he puts on his cycling suit and just before it gets dark, he drives into the Frisian polder for some intervals, three times ten minutes at 300 watts, pedaling hard for someone of his weight, but then again really heavy.
He is just five minutes away when his phone starts to vibrate in his back pocket. Bike to the side. “With Marcel.” On the other side of the line is the voice of Remy de Wit, technical director of the KNSB skating association, who would announce the Olympic nomination no later than this first Sunday of the new year. He’s having a rough day, he says. Because he had to disappoint some people. But luckily he can also make skaters happy. And Marcel Bosker is one of them. He will be allowed to drive the team pursuit and the 1,500 meters in Beijing next month.
It takes him ten minutes to understand what just happened to him. But then suddenly the penny drops. He screams out, twice, alone on the bike. The intervals are a cinch now, he finishes them neatly. As he sends home, he can’t get the grin off his face. Fuck hey, he’s going to the Games.
This is why he, son of two top skaters, emigrated from Schöftland in Switzerland to the Netherlands when he was fourteen. If he wanted to become so good that one day he could go to the Olympics, something his parents couldn’t make it to, then he had no choice but to leave his parental home and live with a host family. In Switzerland you don’t have a skating mentality like in the Netherlands. There are also very few ice rinks. As a child he had learned to skate on a 250-meter track in Zurich. That was fine in the beginning for his cornering, but from a certain speed he couldn’t keep it anymore and it became life-threatening. The ice hockey boarding wouldn’t budge.
Also read: How did Patrick Roest still qualify for the Olympics?
His departure was not so easy. As a 14-year-old, your parents don’t just say; go away, good luck with it. But it was his mother, with whom he lived after the divorce, who gave him a push. If she had been given such an opportunity at that age, she would have known. That’s why she let him go. And then came the day when he had to say goodbye at school. All his mates had to say goodbye, knowing he would never see some of them again. His mother drove him to the Netherlands, to a host family in Ten Boer, near Groningen. There it clicked so well that he would stay there for six years.
He grew into a good all-rounder, finished third in the world as a junior in 2015 and won gold in the team pursuit at the same tournament. Two years later, he became the best all-rounder in the Netherlands, at a tournament where Sven Kramer and Patrick Roest were missing.
Shortly after, he qualified for the Olympic qualifying tournament (OKT) in the run-up to the Pyeongchang Games (2018) for no distance. No point. He had only just come to see. He finished sixth (1,500 meters), eleventh (1,000 meters) and another sixth (5,000 meters), showing his versatility. Partly because of this, he became a permanent fixture in the team pursuit, on which he won the world title three times in a row.
Gene flawless race
A week and a half ago, he went to the OKT with the main goal of qualifying for the World Allround World Championship, in March in Hamar, Norway. To do this, he had to be among the best two in a combination classification in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters. Worked out easy. Mission accomplished. Anything that would come with it was a nice bonus.
In the 10,000 meters on Boxing Day he finished seventh, but he did not drive that race at full speed. He wanted to save himself for the 1,500 meters two days later. At that distance, he had the best chance of placing third behind Thomas Krol and Kjeld Nuis for the Games, the ranking that was noted as tenth in the KNSB’s performance matrix and was a good starting position for broadcasting to the Games. But it was not a flawless race. In the third corner he made a miss. It was as if his skate slipped into a groove. He fanned out and lost precious time. Immediately he felt: shit, this is not enough. He eventually finished fifth. As expected behind Nuis and Krol, but also just behind teammates Patrick Roest and Tijmen Snel.
But that evening, at home in Heerenveen, that feeling had subsided a bit. He said to his girlfriend, skater Melissa Wijfje: “I actually think I’m going to the Games.” Because he can present good papers on the team pursuit. He has won all points and medals for the Netherlands in recent years. He thinks he may have earned a designation spot with that. Moreover, he thinks that the KNSB knows very well that he can be used at more than one distance. You never know in corona time, he says. If someone tests positive for the coronavirus, they can be moved in just about anywhere. If he had worked at the KNSB, he would have known.
Also starting ticket for 1,500 meters
It remains to be seen what they will decide at the federal office. The long-track selection committee may designate three skaters per gender who will increase the chance of winning gold for the Netherlands.
With the women it is immediately clear. The result of the OKT is the same as the list of nine women who go to China. But among the men, more than nine skaters compete in the performance matrix on the OKT. Dai Dai N’tab (second in the 500 meters), Tijmen Snel (third in the 1,500 meters) and Sven Kramer (third in the 5,000 meters). Not him.
And yet his phone rings on Sunday while he is cycling through the polder. He is dependent on the team pursuit because he increases the chance of gold on the only team component, is the conviction. And since he also has to drive an individual distance according to the rules of the International Olympic Committee, he will also receive a starting permit for the 1,500 meters. As a result, Patrick Roest falls short of the distance at which he won silver four years ago. Roest does not understand that decision and is especially disappointed in the union, which did not involve him in the decision-making process and did not inform him. Later, the technical director called him anyway. But the damage was already done.
Also read: At the skating tournament, an Olympic ticket depends on the ‘matrix’
When Marcel Bosker has finished the telephone conversation with the technical director, his first reaction is: “Huh, why am I driving the 1,500 meters?” He immediately thinks of Roest, his teammate at Jumbo-Visma. He must have thanked him for the honour, because he has little chance of a medal or something. They must have at least consulted with him for a while before coming to him. But when he sees his teammate’s angry reaction in a newspaper later that day, he calls him immediately. They can easily get through one door. “Hey, I don’t know how this went,” he says, “but I’m behind you. Whatever happens.” He completely understands Rust’s angry reaction. “He has a right to that place. Or at least he had. But the KNSB must have had good reasons to choose me.” He thinks they should have called Patrick right away. It is the communication of the union that left something to be desired here, not so much the message.
Winners and losers
The other pointer goes to Sven Kramer. The three-time Olympic champion in the 5,000 meters could not have qualified for the Games with a third place in the OKT at that distance, because only behind Snel and N’tab on the matrix. But the KNSB thinks that the chance of a gold medal in the team pursuit also increases “significantly” with him. In order to participate in that part, Kramer had to be assigned to an individual distance. That was the 5 kilometers. He also participates in the mass start for “tactical considerations”, said technical director De Wit. Because when Kramer appears at the start, it instills fear in the competition. It is no coincidence that he has already run several marathons this season.
With the decisions of the KNSB, the Olympic dreams of Dai Dai N’tab and Tijmen Snel shattered. The painful thing is that the winners and losers of the OKT ride with the same commercial team.
In recent days, emotions have been running high at Jumbo-Visma, says Marcel Bosker. And that’s good too. Tijmen Snel had already given him a hug before the choice fell. It is what it is, they concluded together. And he called Dai Dai N’tab a day after the decision. He was happy for him, but still very disappointed.
He doesn’t feel guilty per se, he naturally chooses for himself. But he did experience something unpleasant. When the selection was announced, in addition to congratulations, he also received “extremely” ugly messages on his Instagram page. From people who think he’s an asshole. He tries to shrug it off. What can he do about it? Somehow he understands. Because of him, others stay at home. And this is about the Olympics.
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