INLINE SKATING – He moved to Italy to fully focus on inline skating. This week, at the European Championships, Rémon Kwant hopes that results will show that he made the right choice. The skater from Koekange wants to bring medals from Valence d’Agen in France.
Kwant is already twelve-time Dutch champion at various distances, but the 28-year-old Southwest Drent no longer uses the polonaise for a national title. He would prefer a gold medal on a European podium. To achieve that, he left the Netherlands for a much more intensive training program in Italy. He has been living in the southern European country since January.
In the previous years he noticed that training in the Netherlands was not ideal and that he came up against limits. “I had to do a lot on my own,” he recalls. “Occasionally you train with the national selection, but otherwise I was responsible for my own training program. You can keep that up for a while, but in the long run you wonder if you are doing the right thing. In Italy I have a trainer who arranges everything for me. That gives me peace, even though I train harder now.”
It should eventually pay off in major tournaments. To start today, when Kwant is at the start of the 500 meters. If he performs well in qualifying and in the semi-finals, he will race over the French track in the final tonight. He will also take to the track on Wednesday for the 1000 meters and the relay. The European Championship ends on Sunday.
“I’m mainly looking for confirmation that I’m on the right track,” says Koekanger his goal for the European Championship. “I will be satisfied if I can reach the level of two years ago, when I took home a bronze medal. Next year I hope to be able to get very close to the gold.”
Kwant is prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to be among the European top in inline skating. Not only did he leave the Netherlands and his loved ones behind, he also gave up his job in order to complete his top sport mission with full dedication. Last summer, he said he was at a crossroads. He had to choose: a social career or top sport. Because he still liked rollerblading so much, it became the last.
In the practice sessions, he notices that this decision has made sense. “If I compare my training sessions now with those in January, then I have really taken steps on certain points. That is nice to see.”
But a good training course says very little about the current European Championship, Kwant realizes. “But now it’s time to show it in competitions.”