Skating, says Koen Verweij (31), is actually just like climbing stairs. Sometimes you walk up very easily, from hop-hop, but next time you don’t get one leg before the other. Stick to the steps. That has to do with the control of your muscles and the links between your nerves. They have a memory. From years of training in his case. You may have had such a messy run-up, suddenly things can just fall into place. Then you get it by accident, that’s how skaters say. But then you have to put together a good motor. Well, it is. He dares to say that he is better and stronger than ever. Then on the bike. Mouth-watering values. Now transfer all that violence to the ice. He gets one chance to qualify for his third Winter Games, Thursday in the 1,500 meters. It would be a miracle of God.
Especially because two months ago he had to lay flat with back problems. A hernia played on, not for the first time. He couldn’t do anything for three weeks, at most a little walk. He felt like an old man. And that’s not easy when you know that the competition continues to train and travels all over the world to compete with the best. Then you feel like you are losing. Certainly with only a few weeks left until the Olympic qualifying tournament (OKT) in Heerenveen. And then the Beijing Games.
By bike in Portugal
He was mostly alone. Because Jutta Leerdam (22) was skating world cups, had her own Olympic track. And he didn’t want to be a burden to his girlfriend. If you asked Juut if she realized that he was dying of back pain, she would say no. He hates pity. Little worse than that. He preferred to fight back in the lee.
First by bike in Portugal. He worked for hours and hours on his endurance. He got back on the ice just three weeks ago. Take a slow start first. Then some intervals, slowly towards competition speed. Actually against my better judgement. Because his route to the Games is far from ideal. He says it himself: it is actually not possible. And yet his eyes twinkle.
Those back pains didn’t come out of the blue. His body pressed the stop button. A year earlier, doctors diagnosed a hernia. He had asked far too much of himself, committed years of robbery. Koen Verweij has also been around for so long. Behind his name is a world title in all-round speed skating, gold medals at global distance championships, he is an Olympic champion in team pursuit and he took silver at the Sochi Games in 2014, three thousandths of the gold.
But off the job there was often something wrong with him. He came into conflict with his squad more than once. He would force skaters to take power, pit them against coaches. Not out of personal gain, he says now. He has always stood up for the interests of the skaters. He often denounced “the intermediate layer” between sponsor and athlete. He saw the management live a good life and never even look at themselves. They were at the controls. Sent skaters away if there was no performance for a while. It was never the people who set the lines. You shouldn’t come to him with that. Today he would do things differently. Calmer, more sensible, together.
Also read: without an audience, the Olympic qualifying tournament for Jutta Leerdam feels like a ‘training match’
Island in commercial world
From 2015, he hopped like a nomad from plow to plow. Twice he needed a sabbatical to catch his breath. He joined Russian skaters for a year, was a kind of island in a world dominated by commercial teams. Two years ago, he was offered an internship at Team Reggeborgh. But that was over after a season. They didn’t want to go through with him. And not vice versa.
With his experience, younger skaters often ask him for help. And he’s not the worst. Making someone stronger also makes him better. Get into a flow together. But that can be seen as a threat by the guidance, he thinks. And then you have to leave. Because he can only skate hard if everything is right. If there’s nothing festering under the skin.
First he would go on as a loner until the Games, coached by Kosta Poltavets, the Russian he calls a visionary. But when his talented girlfriend trained with him in the first corona wave and indicated that she liked the three of them so much, everything changed. Because he had long seen that Juut would be capable of great things, as long as she had the right facilities: good physios, great training camps and ice cream in Thialf at Christian times. There was no other option than to start his own team. But you don’t just do that. He would still be upset about that.
Corporate level
A skating team is not like a starting company, where you can often take the time for the start-up phase. You can’t afford any delays so close to the Games. Everything has to be right. You have to find skilled staff, formulate a vision, attract lenders. It’s really just a full-time job. And in corona time, the money is not up for grabs. At corporate level, they are very careful about where they put their money.
While others could rest after a hard workout, he called off companies during those empty hours. He sent emails to potential sponsors, had conversations with managers. He even sat down with a lender during a training camp in October. Quite a bit depended on it. If they were to step in, he could keep his team running until April next year. Otherwise, he would have to close the budget deficit himself.
He wanted so badly to create an environment in which skaters can be a carefree top athlete, without stress about renting a house, being able to pay for expensive sports nutrition or medical treatment. Those things just have to be arranged with him. At the same time, he wanted to guide his girlfriend and he had to stay fit himself. It all broke up his body.
Jutta is the capital of the team with her followers on Instagram
He was just so fit, wanted to show it to himself. And also to the outside world. And to the partners of the team. He became disappointed in his body. But he knew: if anyone can do something special, it’s him. Just ask any trainers who have had it. He always does his best everywhere. If the rest takes a nap, he completes an extra workout. He does nothing else from childhood; Set a goal and then achieve it. Or at least very close to it. He becomes sharper with uncertainty and doubt.
Two weeks ago, he found himself at the ice rink where it all started, in Alkmaar. His parents in the stands, the tension in his body. Because he had not been able to qualify for the World Cups because of that back, he had to skate with the best three at the Holland Cup to qualify for the OKT. That worked, on the 1,000 and 1,500 meters. But it didn’t seem like anything yet. He wanted too much, moved hurriedly. It had little to do with skating. It was more beech.
Against the flow
He thinks no one will take him into account on Thursday. But he’s had that before. And then do it. Rowing against the current. That’s his style. If he gets his timing right, the rest will have a hard time with him. Because he is not afraid of the times that have been driven this season. Not even in the knowledge that he only found peace again from October, when a second sponsor joined in, to feel like a top athlete. And the freedom to focus only on his recovery, and later on training. But he says for a reason: after this season we will see what happens to me.
Because perhaps above all else, he feels constantly responsible for his girlfriend, Jutta Leerdam, one of the banners of the sport. She has the future, with a reach of two million followers on Instagram, she is the skating capital of his team. She can hide behind him, if necessary. He’ll take the blows. She has always been his starting point. As long as she can skate rock hard, the rest will come naturally. He will therefore do everything he can to ensure that she does not end up in the position he has been in for so long. Searching, eccentrically sliding through the Frisian skating hall. That should just never come up. What matters is that she rests. Even if that comes at the expense of his own career. Yes, that may be the case at times. But Jutta comes first. That’s one thing for sure.
Stress-free environment
He will sit down with her after this season. See what she thought of the past two years, see how she can develop. And again with the parties around the table. If he finds sponsors again, he also sees his own career continuing. In a stress-free environment, he even thinks of a world record; 1.39 in the 1,500 meters. Why not?
For example, because it is so difficult to get money in skating. Companies that get in are only a lot with their logos on TV in the winter. But he sees it himself more optimistically. Videoland made a three-part documentary series about him and Leerdam last year, which will be available from January. The couple apparently appeals to a new skating audience. Young people who enjoy glamour, showbiz. He thinks they can bring something together that could be of interest to potential partners throughout the year.
It’s time to take care of it later. Now it’s about his 1,500 meters on the OKT. He doesn’t bother a week in advance. It is as it is, and it comes as it comes. He assumes that his brain and the circuitry between his nerves will get him right. They cannot be trained. Not anymore.
Creating top form, you also do that under your brain.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of December 30, 2021
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