Speed skaters Jorrit Bergsma and Marijke Groenewoud have been added to the teams for the Olympic team pursuit. National coach Jan Coopmans of the team components in long track speed skating announced that choice today.
Sven Kramer, Patrick Roest and Marcel Bosker had already been selected for the team pursuit. In addition to Groenewoud, the women’s team consists of Ireen Wüst, Irene Schouten and Antoinette de Jong.
In view of the uncertainties surrounding the corona pandemic and possible calamities, TeamNL had included Beau Snellink and Melissa Wijfje on top of the official Olympic team of nine men and women as reserves for the team pursuit. They were able to replace a skater until the technical meeting of the team pursuit. After that, that is no longer possible and a change must be taken care of within the team. Bergsma and Groenewoud are now designated for this.
Bergsma was not part of the permanent core of five skaters who have been training with the team pursuit since the summer. He has also not played in this part in recent years. De Fries angrily stepped out of the pursuit team in 2014 during the Sochi Games.
Coopmans spoke to Bergsma for a long time after the skater qualified for the Olympic qualifying tournament. ,,I did agree with him that he would first concentrate on the 10 kilometers,’ said Coopmans in Beijing. ,,I also spoke with Roest, Bosker and Kramer who they thought was the best to select from the group of nine. According to them, that was Jorrit.”
The national coach sees the Netherlands as a favorite for gold in both the men and the women. The teams will drive in about the same way as during the European Championship distances last month. Both teams convincingly took the gold there. The national coach sees Japan as the biggest competitor for the women’s title defender. “We have to beat them one day. There is a lot of competition among the men. The Norwegians are strong and individually they are good. And the Americans and the Russians are good broadly.”
The women’s team pursuit starts on Saturday with the quarter-finals. The men will compete in the quarterfinals on Sunday. The finals are Tuesday.
Click on the rings below to go straight to all Olympic news, our podcasts and videos and the full program.
Watch our videos about the Olympics below.
Listen to our Olympic podcasts below.
View the complete schedule of the Olympic Games below, where you can see exactly when the Dutch athletes come into action.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.