Leen Pfrommer, coach of ‘Ard en Keesie’, had an eye for skating talent

When the shopping streets were deserted and millions of Dutch people sat in front of the TV with pen and paper all weekend to ‘clock Ard and Keessie’, a small, balding coach shouted them forward. Leen Pfrommer died this week after a short illness at the age of 87.

The Netherlands was crazy about skating in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Thanks to Ard Schenk and Kees Verkerk, the friendly opposites who slept together at night and competed with each other during the day. The little Verkerk was initially the boss of the tall Schenk. Until their new coach Pfrommer noticed that the shy Schenk was intimidated in the hotel room by the swagger kicker Verkerk. He took them apart and from that moment on the tables were turned. Schenk surpassed Verkerk – without their friendship suffering.

Professional soldier

See here the influence of a strict coach who preached discipline and order as a professional soldier. Between 1968 and 1977, Pfrommer ‘won’ four Olympic gold medals, four world titles and two European all-round titles with his pupils. He was also successful with Jan Bols, Harm Kuipers, Piet Kleine and Hans van Helden. And later at the Dutch Juniors with Jan Bos and Marianne Timmer. Until the young guard began to criticize his ‘outdated training methods’.

Pfrommer coached for decades with an orange, woolen cap. In NRC he said about it more than 20 years ago: “When the core team riders still wore wool pants and jerseys, the sponsor gave everyone two hats as a bonus, every season.” The skaters usually threw them away, Pfrommer kept them. After six years he had twelve. When the hat was worn out, Pfrommer took a new one out of the closet. “There are now three more in the attic.”

Schenk and Verkerk initially had little faith in their new national coach, they said NRC. Olympic and world champion Verkerk: “Oops, a soldier, we thought. Do we now have to appear saluting at roll call?” Verkerk understood why he was separated from Schenk. Verkerk: “I was not an easy guy, there was no trainer who made me do things that I did not want.”

Three-time Olympic, two-time World and three-time European champion Schenk: „That disconnection was good for my career, possibly a turning point. But maybe I would have gotten away from that second place behind Kees otherwise. Pfrommer improved my technique and increased the work. Sometimes I had to ‘sit’ for 24 or even 30 laps. That was not easy. I was lazy, almost lazy.”

Discovered by Jan Bols

Drenthe stayer ‘Heya’ Jan Bols about his discoverer: „As a cyclist I kept my condition up to standard on natural ice in the winter. Leen saw me there and persuaded me to become a skater. As a cyclist I just did something. Leen was ahead of his time, knew about training programs, let me do gymnastic exercises.”

Between 1984 and 1995, Pfrommer also had successes as a trainer of the Dutch Juniors. He liked to work with “young, unpolished talents”, who also listened to him better than the older champions. Former skating driver Jan Charisius NRC: „Leen had an eye for talent, he showed them the way and raised them according to his standards and values. He even taught them to eat with a knife and fork if he thought it necessary.”

Leen Pfrommer in 2017.
Photo Bram Petraeus

But there were also young drivers who found Pfrommer “too patronising”. The later Olympic champion Bart Veldkamp called him an “old schoolmaster with conservative ideas”. And two-time European and world champion Hilbert van der Duim was addressed on his appearance. “I walked in jeans, a Norwegian sweater and I had long hair. ‘If you join my team,’ said Leen, that will be different. Then you wear your hair neatly short and you wear a nice suit.’ Of course I decided that myself.”

In 1981 Van der Duim came into contact with Pfrommer indirectly in his role as a TV commentator. When he stopped a lap early at the five kilometers at the World Championships in Oslo and rode unsuspectingly until his Norwegian opponent overtook him, Pfrommer shouted from his commentary booth: “Hilbert boy, you have to keep going!” He then accused his successor Egbert van ‘t Oever of a too lax response.

Quarrel and then demotion

Pfrommer switched to the women’s sprint team of the KNSB in 1995. There he got into a fight with leader Christine Aaftink. She left the core team and he later had to make way for American champion maker Peter Mueller. Pfrommer was ‘returned’ to a sprint training team. He left skating through the back door to become a list pusher for the VVD in his hometown of Ermelo in 1994 and in 1998 a council member.

Leen Pfrommer owed a lot to his wife Ietje, whom he had met on the ice. She often went to training camp. “She cooked for the whole club, kept an eye on the cleanliness and tidiness of the rooms. In this way we have saved tens of thousands of guilders for the union,” he said during the presentation of his biography in 2017.

At the end of April, Pfrommer was still remarkably fit and smiling as always at a skating reunion in Leusden. There he spoke to many of the skaters he had worked with and other riders he had seen up close. After a short illness, he passed away unexpectedly two weeks later in the UMC Utrecht.

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