“Oh oh oh!” said reporter Bert Maalderink on Sunday morning against Patrick Rust, who was just beaten by the Swede Nils van der Poel by half a second in the five kilometers. They are like first therapy sessions, the conversations that losing athletes have to have on TV within minutes of their defeat. The defeat must be “given a place” and the rushed reporters from the NOS eagerly contribute to this post-traumatic quest.
Roest (lost gold, gained silver) did not really want to get to know therapist Maalderink. He noticed that Roest was telling it all very cheerfully, after which the medal winner, as it is called, dared to look up his vulnerability: “I feel like shit.” Maalderink was very attentive in his conversation with Sven Kramer. He already adorned himself with the smile of the novice renter, but said casually that he did not want to “go about the job like that”. He was immediately pinned down to a primal emotion: “Are you a little ashamed?”
It was very different the day before conversation with short track star Suzanne Schulting, the star who ruined the chances of the Dutch team in the mixed relay due to a fall. How do you feel, one reporter wanted to know. “It’s really hard shit,” replied Schulting. She twisted the cap on her water bottle and took a sip with a look that would send most therapists straight behind their armchairs.
The provisional Highlight of the Olympic Therapy TV was the conversation that Maalderink had on Saturday with Antoinette de Jong, who had become eighth in the 3000 meters. He employed a confrontational conversation strategy: “This was a deception, wasn’t it?” De Jong could barely keep her voice in line because of misery and initially clung to concealing words. “I have to express my points of improvement on the ice.” Soon she poured out her frustration and bewilderment to the nation. She had given everything, but hadn’t grown tired. It was as if she didn’t hit the ice right. “I felt that I was not putting down my skate properly.”
‘Loss. The. Courage. Not’
The conditions were tough, Maalderink continued the session. “But it has to do with you yourself?” De Jong murmured that it was “not in my head” and that she “could have kept all the pressure small”, but the interviewer/therapist diligently refilled the cup of poison. He asked about the next 1500 meters. “Can you shake your head now and let it be over or is this some kind of backpack?” De Jong would try to bring her “best me” to the start of the next distance. After this fruitful first interview, Maalderink concluded with a fatherly: “Don’t lose heart, do you?” De Jong: “What are you saying?” Maalderink: “Loss. The. Courage. Not.”
On Sunday evening, the long-track therapy appeared to have expanded to Amsterdam-East. The NOS has pitched its tents there with a view of the Jaap Edenbaan, which produced heroic images on Sunday of skating enthusiasts braving a morning storm that poured liters of rainwater over them. In the evening it became relaxed in the same place talk show Beijing Studio including a therapeutic session for Patrick Roest’s parents, brother and sister. They had to watch a compilation of images in which their son and brother devoured the stress during Van der Poel’s ride.
One by one, the camera took a close-up look at the family members, ending with the mother. De Rusten, eight thousand kilometers away from their Patrick, didn’t flinch, no doubt thinking about the moment when they can embrace him untherapeutically in two weeks’ time again.