He was the best judoka in the world between 2008 and 2012. Throw everyone on their back, train 365 days, including Christmas. Yet Henk Grol never got what he ‘was entitled to’: gold at a World Cup. That torment drove him crazy. Now he has stopped and there is his book Focus. “I expose myself, you get an insight into how top sport works.”
“I went all in”, Henk responds in his gym in Velserbroek, “to reach my goal in an extreme way.” An example? Hank laughs. “When I just joined Kenamju (sports club, ed.), I was about seventeen years old, we had a training camp in St. Petersburg. The Russians there really want to kill you. We trained four hours outside the city in a Soviet hotel with holes in the windows, dusty blankets and the toilets didn’t flush. The food was very bad.”
“I screamed in pain but was kicked onto the mat”
During the first training, Henk tears a band in his middle finger. “I could no longer grab or bend that finger. Maarten Arens my coach looked at it, tore off a piece of tape and wrapped it around my finger. I screamed out in pain. But I was not allowed to complain and was kicked onto the mat with the text: you want to become a champion. That’s how it went. I liked that. You have to suffer to achieve something and train your mind. That’s called character building. I had to be taught that.”
Henk Grol, April 14, 1985 Veendam, is one of the best judokas the Netherlands has ever known. At the age of seventeen he started judo with Kenamju in Haarlem, where he has lived for more than fifteen years. Henk was twice third at the Olympic Games, three times vice world champion and three times European champion. National coach Maarten Arens was always his judo trainer and his strength trainer was Herman Debrot. Henk is best known for his spartan training and unconditional choice for top sport.
Henk would get into a lot of fights, especially when he judotes at Kenamju in Haarlem in 2007 and decides to switch to a heavier weight class, the minus one hundred kilograms. At that time, Elco van der Geest was the best in the Netherlands there.
His father Cor van der Geest, technical director of the Judo Bond and owner of Kenamju, did not want Henk to switch. According to Henk, this could threaten his son Elco.
Private road
“I did that then, fuck it. I’m going my own way,” says Henk now. “I was then opposed by the union and Cor, and I didn’t get any international tournaments in the beginning.
Also at the club Kenamju, where Elco and I trained together, many people were against me. Trainer Ronald Joorse, also from Kenamju and friend of the Van der Geest family, stood up for me. He thought I deserved a fair chance. That helped then. Ronald meant a lot to me.”
“Maarten shouted: don’t do anything anymore! But I didn’t listen”
In 2008 Henk qualified for the 2008 Games in Beijing. Before that tournament he threw everyone off the mat. In retrospect it would be one of his best periods, in which he was free on the mat and seemed unbeatable.
On the day of the games he had the day of his life, until the semi-finals. Sighing: “I was in front and should have judoed that match, but I wanted to throw it so badly. My coach Maarten shouted: don’t do anything anymore! But I didn’t listen, started an attack and was taken over.”
Text continues below the photo.
Road final. Gone gold. Dream away. He threw the bronze medal he did get against a wall afterwards. “I didn’t want that medal, I was so angry that I had lost gold. Maarten took the medal with him later.”
Torn inner tube
In 2009 the Judo World Championship was held in Rotterdam. In a full Ahoy, Henk tore the inner tube in his knee in the first round. The heavyweight heard the snap, but would make it to the final with a limp. Which he would lose. Again no gold. Henk: “The scan showed a tear of one centimeter, the doctor said: you have zero inner tube left, that your cruciate ligament (another ligament in the knee, ed.) is still attached is a miracle.”
Keep spinning
Never winning a gold medal at a global final tournament caused Henk to slowly go crazy. In a maniacal way, he was even more preoccupied with training for that one goal. On vacation there had to be a good gym. He trained 365 days a year, including Christmas and New Year. Birthdays were skipped and he exhausted his body to the max.
“People had to stop him from entering the NOS studio”
Henk Grol was an established name in global judo, but he was still missing something. Gold. He put immense pressure on himself and became increasingly stressed before major final tournaments, he hardly slept and began to use sleep medication. He came third again at the 2012 Games in London. His strength trainer Herman Debrot, who was present there, did not congratulate Henk.
Henk: “He was so fucking angry. That people had to stop him from entering the NOS studio. He wanted to explain there that I was ‘right to gold’. He was right in principle. We trained so hard I loved how Herman trained me: why Christmas? F*ck it. We’re just going to train. Every day. We lived for it.”
Text continues below the photo.
Looking back now, Henk admits that it was not always good how he trained: “I had occasionally let things go, but I couldn’t, didn’t want to. I couldn’t train for a day without it. I went crazy about it I loved breaking down so much, doing judo with blood in your mouth, it might be hard to explain, but I was addicted to it.
Colombian porn queen
After the 2016 Games, Henk went completely ‘over the edge’. The relationship he had for years ended. Henk had cheated and he was still hooking up with a girl from South America, who Ronald Joorse would say was a Colombian porn queen.
His parents also didn’t want to see him anymore, everyone was angry. Henk could often be found in the city and drank too much. In Café Du Theatre, the favorite café of Haarlem judokas, owner Tjerk Schreurs no longer served him any alcohol.
Text continues below the photo.
Eventually Henk comes out of the deep valley, partly due to his upcoming competitor Roy Meyer and his hunger for gold. “I wanted to stop before the 2020 Games. My whole body was exhausted, but at the same time judoka Roy Meyer was getting better and took bronze at the World Cup. My new girlfriend Merel then said: you can’t do that, then you go here on the couch sitting and watching how Roy is at the Olympic Games. And she was right,” Henk agrees. He then entered the battle and qualified for the Games, where he eventually lost. Then it was done. Really ready.
Family life
The now 38-year-old Henk is now an entrepreneur with two gyms, one of which is in Velserbroek. He has a stable relationship with the Haarlem Merel Barnhoorn. Together they have a son of one and a half and since today there is Henk’s book.
According to the ex-judoka, this was partly due to his father-in-law, Pieter Barnhoorn, the former alderman for sport in Haarlem. “He thought there should be a book because I have so many beautiful stories. I thought: surely no one is waiting for that?”, says Henk.
Little boy
Eventually he tacks and through publisher Marieke Derksen the book is written together with writer Mark van den Heuvel. “We started doing interviews with important people from my career, such as Ronald Joorse, Herman Debrot and Maarten Arens. I wanted other people to tell about me. I can say that I train hard, but let others say that.”
According to Henk, his book provides an insight into how top sport works, but also that if you want to achieve something in your life, a lot is possible. “I started judo as a little boy from Veendam and never thought it would end like this. Where there is a will, there is a way. Yes, I am a good example of that.”