“He can still do it, he will do it for you!” While Patrick Roest battles through his 1,500 meters on Saturday, the speaker of the Thialf ice stadium in Heerenveen encourages the audience to get behind him. And that happens: there is loud cheering and clapping for the champion of yesteryear. And lo and behold, Roest manages to squeeze out two relatively quick final rounds.
He thought it was “especially nice”, the massive support from the public, says Roest afterwards in the Thialf tunnel. “As a result, I still got everything out of the ride, even though I knew it wasn’t enough.”
It certainly wasn’t enough. Roest finishes eleventh in the 1,500 meters. The National Distance Championships are over for him – he had already run such a bad time in the 5,000 meters that he will no longer be eligible for a starting spot in the 10,000 meters on Sunday. This also means that Roest will not qualify for this year’s World Cup competitions, where he should have gained confidence in an important season: the Winter Olympics in Milan in February.
The problem is not his fitness, he says after the 1,500 meters – it is his technique. After more than ten years at the highest level, Roest (29) suddenly no longer manages to skate smoothly and intuitively. He is “not himself on the ice,” as he puts it. “Normally I didn’t think about skating. I stood at the start and I went. Now I’m thinking so much. I already notice that during training and I take that with me into the competitions. I can’t move freely.”
Implosion
For years, Patrick Roest was one of the best skaters in the world, the country’s standard-bearer for long distances. He became world champion seven times and won four Olympic medals. But last season, out of nowhere, an implosion followed. He still doesn’t know the exact cause. First there was an infected wisdom tooth, later he started having back problems – he himself blamed it on being overtired. In January he ended the season prematurely, without having competed in a single international competition.
After that, Roest did nothing at all for a month and a half. He stayed on his parents’ farm in Lekkerkerk, South Holland. He sat on the tractor, went to the pub with friends. The skates stayed in the grease, the racing bike in the garage. In the summer he resumed training and his condition improved again – but once on the ice he still didn’t play much. In October, he recorded his worst time in the 5,000 meters in eight years during a training race.
They noticed, as his coach Robin Derks said on Saturday in Thialf, that Roest simply could not make too many steps forward at the same time. “It’s fragile. If he takes too big a step, it’s two steps back.”
Twelve rounds of fighting
At the National Distance Championships this weekend, Roest had hoped that things would go well. That he would find his intuition again, or at least the way up. But his first performance, Friday evening in the 5,000 meters, was immediately disappointing. Halfway through the game, Roest started looking down at the ice – a sign for him that things were not going well. Although he did not collapse in the final rounds, he did lose out to his direct opponent Wisse Slenderbroek, a 21-year-old student who mainly skates marathons. With a final time of 06:19.39, Roest was almost seven seconds slower than winner Marcel Bosker and more than seventeen seconds slower than his own best time.
Roest made a desperate impression in front of the NOS camera afterwards. “It was twelve rounds of fighting,” he said. In this form, he said resignedly, “it might be better if I don’t qualify for the World Cup.” That ‘wish’ came true: with an eleventh place, Roest remained, just like in the 1,500 meters, far away from a starting place.
He still hopes to qualify for Milan, Roest said on Saturday. The fact that he can’t go to the World Cups, he said, is actually a kind blessing in disguise. “I wouldn’t have participated to win anyway. Now I can train and compete here in the Netherlands.” These will, of necessity, be second-tier competitions – such as the Holland Cup on the semi-covered De Scheg ice rink in Deventer, which he had to compete in in October to ensure participation in the National Championships.
Eight more weeks
In theory, Roest can still make it to the Games. He must be back to his old level in one fell swoop by the end of December, during the Olympic Qualifying Tournament – without having competed in top international competitions. The hope is still there, says coach Robin Derks, but time is running out. “We still have eight weeks. It’s that simple.”
And if Roest does not make it to the Games, will that mean the end of his career? “I can be brief about that,” says his coach Derks. “That has never occurred to him.”
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 items give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.