Egmonder Joop Smit won the first Egmond half marathon fifty years ago. To celebrate that anniversary, a statue for Smit was unveiled today on Boulevard Noord in the coastal village. Just in time for the weekend in which the tough beach and dune race will be run again.
Joop died at the age of 75 in 2017. Until his body really didn’t allow it anymore, he could be found running daily on the beach and in the dunes of Egmond aan Zee. Besides nature and Derp, as Egmonders call their village, running was his great passion, his widow Martine Smit (79) tells NH News.
“He started running in his teens,” she recalls. “He was a member of DOVES in Heiloo, which later became Trias, and actually ran every day, sometimes before and after work for a few hours. He preferred to do cross country running, but he was also good on the track.”
Well done his best
Looking out at a large batch of medals, Martine says soberly: “He did his best.” She drove him by car to all the races across the country. “Marathons and various championships. Joop won a lot.”
On March 11, 1973, the ‘Halve van Egmond’ was organized for the first time in his village, and Joop was the first to cross the finish line. His widow tells us in the report below about what that did to him and what it meant to him.
The bronze statue was designed by the Egmond artist Fabio Pravisani, on the initiative of the village association. That association paid for the statue together with ‘half’ organizer Le Champion and the municipality of Mons.