For sprinter Thomas Krol it started weeks in advance, with poor sleep. As it got closer, the nerves got worse. And on the day of the race itself, immediately upon getting up: pain in his stomach, increased heart rate, a bit sweaty. The former skater fell into a kind of trance, he says, “where you no longer notice what is happening around you.”
Of course, tension is part of top sport. No nerves, no performance. But the stress that Dutch speed skaters experience during the quadrennial Olympic qualifying tournament (OKT), they say, is more intense than anything they have experienced in their career – including the Olympic Games themselves. That makes the OKT, on Boxing Day, the edition of the Games in Milan, by far the least popular tournament among skaters. “It is,” says former Olympic champion Carlijn Achtereekte, “the only competition that I will not miss anytime soon.”
The OKT was born from a luxury problem: as the world’s number one skating nation, the Netherlands has for decades had more contenders for medals than starting places at the Games. Since 2002, all riders, including the top favorites for gold, have to compete against each other in Thialf. Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, a month and a half before the Games. One ride, one chance. The ranking is unrelenting: if something goes wrong, the Olympic ambitions can be put on hold for four years. At the OKT, as a well-known saying goes in the skating world, there is nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Failures, successes, extra stress
Many skaters also carry the burden of previous OKTs and Olympic Games with them during those five days in December. Failures, successes: both, in their own way, cause extra stress. Carlijn Achtereekte started at the previous OKT as the reigning Olympic champion in the 3,000 meters. That already gave extra pressure, she says, it felt like “an obligation to myself” to drive well. She was also not in good shape. “I got Covid in the preseason, which meant I actually didn’t regain my old form.”
For sprinter Thomas Krol the situation was exactly the opposite. His first two OKTs had ended in a deception: in 2014 he missed the 1,000 meters – his distance – by 0.06 seconds. Four years later he did qualify, but his place was subsequently given to another sprinter, Kai Verbij, who was considered more likely to win a medal by the KNSB skating association. The OKT of December 2021 felt like a last chance for Krol. He quotes his favorite rapper Eminem: you only get one shot, don’t miss your chance to blow.
Thomas Krol congratulates Hein Otterspeer after the 1000 meters during the fourth day of the Olympic long track speed skating qualifying tournament in Thialf in 2021.
Photo Koen van Weel/ANP
For Hein Otterspeer, a fellow sprinter of Krol, things were different again on that OKT. Four years earlier he had finished fourth at two distances, just outside the Olympic selection. Now he was in top form, all preseason. Only: during an earlier ride, in the 500 meters, he suffered a tear in his groin. “I wanted to start in the 1,000 meters anyway,” says Otterspeer. “I felt strong, I owed this to myself. I would do anything to qualify for the Games, even if it would leave me with a lifelong injury.”
‘Keep it small’
How do you deal with so much pressure? With one ride in which a few hundredths of a second can determine the next four years of your skating career – perhaps even your entire career? Many skaters nowadays work with one mental coach or a psychologist. This also applies to Krol, Achtereekte and Otterspeer in the run-up to their OKT of 2021. All three received more or less the same advice: ‘keep it small’. Don’t think too much about the consequences, focus as much as possible on what you have to do on the ice. Don’t get distracted, try to ignore the results of the competition. Task-oriented thinking, that’s what it’s called in sports psychology. And it helped, the skaters say.
Nevertheless, the tension rose considerably. In the weeks before the OKT, Achtereekte says, she became extremely irritable and saw things everywhere that were not going well – even though that was not the case at all. “My timing in the corner, for example, I didn’t think was good. I wanted everything to feel perfect. My coach Jac Orie was teasing me about that.”
On the day of the ride, Achtereekte says, she couldn’t eat anything for breakfast. “So I opted for something I liked, a sandwich with chocolate sprinkles. Less healthy than a balanced plate of oatmeal, but at least I got it.” And man, man, did the skaters have to waste a lot of time before the ride, which was held at the end of the afternoon at the earliest. They did all kinds of things that day to distract from the tension. They slept in a little longer, watched a movie, played a board game, scrolled on their phone. “But yes,” says Achtereekte, “those hours still lasted a very long time.”
Thomas Krol after his 1000 meters during the OKT in an empty Thialf in 2021. “A cold, bleak atmosphere”.
VINCENT JANNINK/ANP
Then, finally, came the ride. In December 2021 it was held in an empty Thialf, due to the third (and final) corona lockdown. That created, says Thomas Krol, a “cold, bleak atmosphere”. No cheering, no music, just the scratch of skates on the ice and the shouts of coaches to their riders. “We sat in a row like skaters before the start, as if we were waiting for an execution.”
In the 3,000 meters, Carlijn Achtereekte, despite her lack of form, set one of the fastest times to date in Heerenveen. “I don’t know where I got it from.” She came third, one hundredth of a second behind number four Merel Conijn. Achtereekte thus qualified for the Games in Beijing. “Afterwards I was just crying in the middle court. So much came out.”
Hein Otterspeer rode the 1,000 meters with everything he had, despite his torn groin. He came third, enough to qualify for the Games this time. “After the ride it turned out that the crack had become larger,” he says. “There was a 4 centimeter gash in my groin. But yes, I would have made it.”
Thomas Krol had “a terrible cold” on the day of the 1,000 meters. “I would have canceled a normal tournament a long time ago,” he says. But of course he drove. After his ride, Thialf’s results board showed a personal record – and the fastest time of participants. A month and a half later, Krol became Olympic champion in the 1,000 meters at the Beijing Games.
Big advantage
The three drivers will be present again at the OKT between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Not as participants, that is: all three are retired from skating. Krol has been flying around the world for a year and a half as a pilot in training with KLM. Achtereekte switched to cycling after the 2022 Olympic Games (where she finished seventh in the 3,000 meters). And Hein Otterspeer (eleventh in the 1,000 meters in Beijing) started this year as a skating coach, with a team called Team Staan.
Looking back, despite all the stress, the skaters also see a major advantage to the OKT, an advantage that foreign competition lacks. Once you make it, they say, a lot of tension is lifted. Even at the Games themselves, you are never as nervous as you were at the OKT, because you have already been trained to perform peaks under extreme pressure. “My experience at the OKT,” says Carlijn Achtereekte, “certainly contributed to my gold medal in 2018.”
Yet there is one thought that will regularly occur to them in Thialf in the coming days – Otterspeer as a coach on the ice, the other two as spectators in the stands. Krol: “I’m so happy that I don’t have to be there at the start.”
Hein Otterspeer during the OKT four years ago in Heerenveen. “I would have done anything to qualify.”
VINCENT JANNINK/ ANP
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