Ireen Wüst and Sven Kramer, a couple and yet separate

If she wanted to share her farewell with anyone, it would be with her brother. Ireen Wüst told that to her former coach Geert Kuiper earlier this winter. She clarified her ‘skating brother’ when he looked at her questioningly: Sven Kramer.

Wüst and Kramer are not self-imposed friends, but their lives have become intertwined in the years when they grew from talented teenagers to the best Olympians the Netherlands has known. This creates a bond, although Kuiper does not expect Kramer to describe Wüst as a ‘skating sister’. “He’s always less outspoken about his feelings, but he clearly has a lot of respect for her.”

The two 35-year-old skaters, who were both born in April 1986, broke through eighteen years ago and said goodbye to skating together on Saturday afternoon. As reigning Olympic champion, she will once again hear the starting shot of the 1,500 meters at the World Cup final. Kramer will not play in Thialf, but will receive a salute with her in the sold-out skating stadium.

They have often been honored together in Heerenveen. For example, they sat together in the sleigh in 2007 after the World Allround Championships and went around with a laurel wreath after their European titles in 2013 and 2017. Kramer was the confident man for a decade and a half who won Olympic gold three times in a row in the 5 kilometers, Wüst the one who could peak like no other and won a title in five consecutive Games.

False start

Kuiper took them under his wing in 2006 as one of the coaches of the TVM skating team. ‘It was clear then that they were the talents and that they would win a lot. But that much? That was unpredictable.’ Certainly not because they both had a false start at the beginning of their careers.

Wüst was left with whiplash in a car accident in the summer of 2004 and Kramer broke his ankle a year earlier after falling down the stairs. “If that hadn’t happened, Kramer would have broken through even earlier,” says Peter Kolder, their coach at the Dutch Juniors at the time. ‘Sven was further than the others in the Juniors. He knew his way around the skating world from his family, more than Ireen. Everyone was drawn to him. I think that has been the case until very recently. Patrick Roest also benefited from him. They’re going to miss him.’

For former skater Carl Verheijen, who would be surpassed by Kramer as a stayer at TVM, that young cheeky Frisian was also a source of motivation. ‘I have been brought to a higher level by him and even achieved personal bests in my last year.’ The attention that Kramer had for his sport was incomparable with what the experienced Verheijen, at that time two-time world champion 10 kilometers, knew. “He was consistently getting better.”

Wüst was just like that, believes Verheijen, who worked as chef de mission in Beijing. ‘They were very responsible in their approach to sports at a young age. They both always knew how to find something to get more out of themselves. They were unique. Physically, but above all mentally.’

It was Wüst who in 2006 was the first to grab a major international title: gold in the Olympic 3 kilometers. That came as a surprise after her hitherto difficult first winter as a professional at TVM. It was obvious that Kramer, who was simply adapting to the heavy training regime of the big men, would get involved in the battle for the medals. He grabbed silver in the 5K, behind Chad Hedrick.

Huge drive

They are not inferior to each other in drive, says Kolder, who still has good contact with them. And the same goes for their love for skating. That, he says, is the main reason they both lasted a long time. “They are real lovers.”

Their careers ran parallel in the early years with the TVM team. Everything seemed possible for the two child prodigies on clap skates. The year after her first Olympic gold, Wüst took silver in the 2007 World Sprint Championships in the same winter that she became world champion all-round. Kramer also aspired to be more than a stayer, although that never happened.

They proved to be fragile at times. Kramer was injured on the side in the winter of 2010-2011 and struggled with back problems for years. Wüst overtrained in 2008, suffered a concussion in 2015 and had to deal with the death of her best friend Paulien van Deutekom in 2019.

Of the two, Wüst succeeded best in getting back together, also because Kramer’s back problems would never disappear, despite an operation in April 2021. He only finished ninth in his 5 kilometers at the last Games in Beijing, Wüst took individual gold for the fifth Games in a row. The period in which she conquered global titles spans 16 years, Kramer’s reign is five years shorter: from the World Allround World Cup in 2007 to the Olympic title in the 5 kilometer in South Korea in 2018.

‘Besides good winners, they were also very good losers’, says Bert Maalderink, who interviewed them so often as a NOS reporter that the details in the big mush of memories are lost. ‘But I will never forget their loss matches. That substitution at the Vancouver Games (2010) by Kramer and the lost European Championship all-round by Wüst in Collalbo (2007).’ Despite their anger and grief, they wiped away their tears and told their story. ‘Only great champions can tell a story and get their words out so well.’

They were not so eloquent at first. In the first report that Maalderink made about them in the run-up to the 2005 World Allround Championships, they were still pretty blue. “I went to Inzell, where they were at training camp. Wüst had a fuller face and a strong Brabant accent and Kramer was covered with pimples. They were really different people.’

The two skaters grew up in front of his microphone in the years that followed. Maalderink: ‘They really have become people of the world.’ And they became more and more outspoken. After all, winners are listened to. “They were the spokesperson for skating and there are few who can fill their place.”

Seriousness versus fun

As time went on, their paths diverged, especially after TVM stopped as a skating sponsor. Kramer opted for the sporting and financial security of Jac Orie’s established Jumbo-Visma team. Wüst had a harder time finding a place. After a year with coach Marianne Timmer, she tried to set up a team herself and invested her savings to make it a success. She eventually found a sponsor, but it took effort. She could never compete with Kramer commercially and financially.

There are also characterological differences, says Verheijen. In those early years, he noticed how Kramer was very concerned with his position in the team and could enjoy the game with his opponents, to get under their skin. Wust was not like that. She was much more concerned with herself when it came to skating. At the same time, she had a little more eye for the world around her. Certainly after the death of Van Deutekom, Verheijen saw. ‘Since then, she has also gained more appreciation for the successes.’

Kramer is serious, says Kjeld Nuis, who was his teammate at Jumbo-Visma for six years and spent the past two years at Reggeborgh with Wüst. In Beijing they celebrated their title together in the Olympic 1,500 meters. ‘Ireen is a little more in for a laugh. Sven never went to a party or anything. Ireen can sometimes be a non-athlete for a while.’

Their vacations reflect another difference, thinks coach Kuiper. ‘Ireen goes on winter sports with friends, just among other people. Sven prefers a resort.’ A little more separate from the rest. ‘Sven is sociable and very loyal to his friends, but is more bothered by the outside world. That used to be the case. When he entered somewhere, people immediately bumped into each other.’ He doesn’t like that.

‘humming’

Not that Kramer doesn’t enjoy company, on the contrary. When a cycling training is on the program, the skaters and regional cyclists often gather at his home for a cup of coffee and a chat beforehand, says coach Kolder. And then ‘moped’ with the group, cycling hard through Friesland. ‘Ireen also sometimes joined in. Everyone liked that. That men flew off and she could keep up.’

Kramer and Wüst are aware of their prominent position in skating history, although they sometimes find it a bit uncomfortable. ‘What is it like to be Ard and Keessie 2.0’, Nuis asked Wüst with a joke. ‘She had to laugh so hard. She doesn’t feel that way.’ Yet there is something in it. Ard Schenk and Kees Verkerk symbolized the Dutch skating successes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. And that is Kramer and Wüst for the past 15 years.

Maalderink: ‘I’ve always seen them as a duo. Even when they were no longer on the same team. They are at least the same size. And it also fits nicely in this time that it is a man and wife this time.’

According to Nuis, Wüst is bigger. ‘Sven can’t match her in any way. When she hangs all her Olympic medals around her neck, her entire front is covered. Not with Kramer.’

The fact that it is Kramer who demands the most attention is a male-female issue, Nuis thinks. ‘Ireen is lucky to be a skater. If she had been a footballer, everyone would have known Sven Kramer and no one Ireen Wüst. But even in skating you are less valued as a woman.’

The significance of Wüst and Kramer cannot be underestimated, thinks Kuiper. With a whole generation of skaters in their wake, long track speed skating grew into the Dutch medal machine at the Winter Games. And their commercial value kept sponsors interested. Maalderink sees that too. “I don’t know if they got skating on the rise, but they definitely kept it on the map. They were out of the ordinary.’