Jutta Leerdam on her way to sprint title, De Boo fights a ‘nice battle’ with ‘friend’ Prins

Jutta Leerdam is in good shape to claim her fourth national sprint title on Sunday. On the first day of the skating tournament in Heerenveen, the 25-year-old sprinter, after finishing second in the 500 meters, was by far the fastest in ‘her’ 1,000 meters (1.14.15), enough to claim first place in the general classification. .

Femke Kok (24) is in second place. She returned to action for the first time in an official match, after missing the preseason due to a viral infection. Last week she already surprised with the best time of the season worldwide in the 500 meters, even though she had only been back in training for three weeks after an ice-free period of five weeks. Now she improved that time again: 37.39.

The big question remains whether Kok will appear at the skating rink on Sunday. After great efforts, she notices that her body still has to make a lot of effort to recover. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that she knew she would start at the National Championships; since the infection she did not ride more than one distance in a day. “I’m going to listen carefully to my body tomorrow morning,” she said afterwards. If Kok drops out, number three Suzanne Schulting will move to second place.

Among the men, Jenning de Boo (20) rode his fastest 500 meters ever in Thialf. He spoke to the press afterwards with a beaming smile, even though his teammate and friend Tim Prins (21) had beaten him moments earlier in the 1,000 meters. “I can be very happy,” said De Boo. “Tim and I always have a nice one battle. Our race at the World Cup qualifier last year is still one of the best moments of my career. We got the best out of each other and broke through together.”

Because Prins made a mistake in the 500 meters and lost valuable time, he has to settle for fourth place in the rankings for now. Another unlucky one was 19-year-old Mats van den Bos, who, after finishing second in the 500 meters, crashed in the 1,000 meters.

Prins calls beating the Boo “no longer realistic”, although after his failed first distance he no longer had the illusion of being able to get a place on the podium. The anger disappeared ten minutes after his race, after which he fought back in the rankings in the 1,000 meters in 1.07.56. The first three qualify for the European Championships.

Speed ​​doesn’t come to Rust

Patrick Roest (29) returned to competition at the all-round tournament. Like his teammate Kok, he missed the preseason due to health problems. An infected wisdom tooth bothered him, and since then he has been looking for good form. On Saturday he turned out to be far from that in the 5,000 meters. In 6.24.9 he was more than 16 seconds slower than Chris Huizinga. “The speed just didn’t come,” sighed Roest afterwards. “The body can’t handle it yet, this was substandard.”

Even achieving a podium place, and thus a ticket for the European All-round Championships in mid-January, seems an almost impossible task for Roest after day one. He is now in fourth place, behind Huizinga, Beau Snellink and Marcel Bosker. “Canceling is not yet in my mind, but the 10,000 meters will be a long ride this way.”

Canceling is not yet in my mind, but the 10,000 meters will be a long ride this way

While defending champion Huizinga is well on his way to his second national title, the women’s all-round tournament awaits an exciting conclusion on Sunday. After day one, defending champion Antoinette Rijpma-De Jong is in the lead, but the difference with number two Joy Beune is only 0.25 seconds in the 1,500 meters. Most attention was paid to the performance of Merel Conijn, who was the only rider to dip under four minutes in the 3,000 meters and firmly occupied third place.

Afterwards she tried to temper her joy, she wants to continue watching the tournament “by distance”. But her time on the 3,000 meters was “a little faster than I thought.” She must limit the damage to Rijpma-De Jong and Beune in the 1,500 meters, after which she would like to surprise again in the 5,000 meters. “Can I still set a PR? The form is there, so I hope so.”

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