Twin sisters De Brouwer over the downside of Olympic synchronous swim success: ‘I can’t do it to Norwegian to continue for a few more years’

Together they have an Instagram account, the twin sisters Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer. They shared news in mid -September: they stopped synchronized swimming, the sport they started as five -year -olds.

Together they have achieved unique achievements in a sport that is Piepklein in the Netherlands: silver at the World Championship in Doha. Bronze at the Summer Games in Paris. And now, after 21 years of swimming, their top sport pension. “There is so much to be grateful,” was the message. But, somewhat cryptic, it also referred to the pressure of “pushing boundaries.” “Limits that we have passed through without having really passed.”

A week and a half later, Noortje and Bregje de Brouwer (26) enter a lunch shop in Tilburg, the city where they have just moved. And no, they don’t live together. “Conscious,” says Noortje. They also do not want to work in the same place, although they both studied sports marketing.

Noortje: “We are twins, but we also just have our own life.”

Bregje: “We are now going to build that up separately.”

After the Games, during a tour in Asia, they chose to spend six weeks without each other. Bregje: “Then you meet people who have no idea that you are twins.”

Had they never experienced that?

Noortje: “No, not at all.”

Bregje: “That is very nice.”

Noortje: “Now we hear stories from each other that we don’t know yet.”

On that journey both the realization grew that it had been enough. Although the feeling at Noortje was stronger, says Bregje. “But I always explain: I have a healthy body and Noor is the unlucky bird. I can’t put it on her to continue for three years, while her body gives signals that the Max has been reached.”

Noortje has been suffering from nerve damage in her shoulder for years. In addition, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just before ‘Paris’.

Noortje: “I just wanted to give Bregje the freedom: if you want to continue, you have to do that. But I knew she wanted with me, or not.”

For example, the Olympic tournament of Paris, with that bronze medal, turned out to be their last game afterwards. Noortje: “I always think that is a cliché, but we stopped at the peak.”

Bregje: “It was such a nice total picture. The performance itself, that was really the highest achievable for us. With family and friends in the stands. When we were on stage … It is a shame that you will never have such a moment again.”

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Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer (1999) grew up in Goirle, in Brabant, as the youngest in a close family of five. Good for independence, they both say. Bregje: “In a large family, not everything is done for you:” Here’s bread, here is the siege, find it out. “

Their oldest sister did synchronous swimming. When the two came to look in the pool as a very young girls, a coach joked immediately: I want that. Being twins is a huge advantage in synchronous swimming: at the top of the sport it is full of twins, such as the Chinese Olympic champions Wang Liuyi and Wang Qianyi. The same appearance is useful, but the same way of moving is certainly so important. And then there is often the Gemini band, with half a word enough.

You protect each other

In 2017, they are eighteen, Noortje and Bregje will train more seriously, with the Spanish coach Esther Jaumà.

Noortje: “Only then did we realize: Oh, we are apparently working towards the Olympic Games.”

Bregje: “We had never looked at that before.”

Your coach told me that she was immediately impressed by your band. You are also kind to each other in the water, she said.

Bregje: “Yes, but we can really be honest. If there are little frustrations:” Noor, you’ve already made this mistake ten times. ”

She also said you can form a front. In criticism of one, the other felt addressed.

Noortje: “I think that was automatic.”

Bregje: “You take on each other.”

Noortje: “Especially also in recent years. I just felt that I needed Bregje. Not only needed for swimming. I just needed Bregje to be able to live at all … To be able to live too big, but to dare to dare again.”

Noortje did not swim for a year after the Tokyo Games, Bregje worked together with Marloes Steenbeek during that period. The story for the outside world was that the break came through Noortjes shoulder. But after a hesitation, she says that more was playing: “At one point my body got so upset that I had to surrender every day without me wanted it.”

It started in Curaçao, except for the first training internship after Corona. Her coach thought it was a sunstroke because she felt better in the water. “But I immediately knew it was something in my head.” She thinks that shoulder injury may have given a start. That continued to drag, possibly that she has exceeded physical and mental boundaries; The boundaries that were hinted in the Instagram message. A physical cause for vomiting has not been found.

Bregje: “She has never shared this story. We don’t want to put the attention on it. But it has been a big part of our lives.”

Noortje: “First it happened mainly around competitions, when I suddenly started to doubt: did I prepare well? But later it also came up with training. It hindered me much more than my shoulder injury.”

Did you gradually get more grip on it?

Noortje: “In the beginning you think: I always throw everything out, then I no longer have energy. But then I turned out to be able to win silver at a World Cup. Your body is so much stronger than you think.”

Bregje: “Especially your head.”

Noortje: “If I think back to Paris, because there too I was not mentally at my best, then I think: you mindset Is so important. ”

In Paris, Noortje could barely hold anything in for days.

How do you keep that up?

Bregje: “A lot [koolhydraatrijke] gels. ”

Noortje: “And my distraction was just training. Because I had to pay very structured to my points of attention and corrections. Then I got some peace in my body.”

Bregje: “Distraction helped.”

Noortje: “In the Olympic village I already woke up nauseous and then Bregje said: Come on, you have to focus your head on something else. Then we set up hard music.”

And you also had that diabetes diagnosis.

Noortje: “At first I was afraid that I had done that, because there was so much upset inside. But luckily the specialist said that that was not possible.”

Despite everything, says Bregje, she never doubted that she would go to Paris with her sister. The love for the sport has always remained. Even though synchronized swimming is tangling: keep laughing if you suffer pain, more than half a minute under water on a heartbeat of 180.

You work towards perfection: even if your finger is skewed, it counts

Noortje: “My psychologist asked: What do you like best in training sessions? Well, we like to tinker with every detail. You work towards perfection: even if your finger is skewed, it counts.”

Bregje: “We just love details very much.”

Noortje: “If we played a game of Risk at home, we always list the dolls very precisely. That perfectionism fits in with the sport.”

Bregje: “But our coach also said: You have to dare to take a risk.”

Noortje: “We have seen that in recent years.”

Just before ‘Paris’ they did what they had not dared before. Together with Jaumà, they screwed up the difficulty of their freestyle – in the synchronized swimming both the difficulty and the performance – until beyond the boundary of what they could both could. “Two weeks before the Games we just took a step back,” says Bregje. “Then we knew: this is our max. In Paris we were close to silver, but we really have peace with it that it became bronze.”

Since she stopped, she feels better, says Noortje. Surrendering no longer happens, although the fear for that is still there. Looking back, she would sometimes want the way to ‘Paris’ different. “At first I didn’t know what to surrender triggered. But I found out that it was a kind of uncertainty. When I had the confidence, things went better. If I ever become a coach, I would be more aware of that. ”

Bregje: “In top sport you often hear what needs to be better, but also the things that will have to be said well.”

Noortje: “You sometimes forget what you can do.”

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