He no longer dives for the ball. He’s also better off jumping high. But otherwise the 82-year-old Rinus Meijer from Helmond is still very fanatical with his sport. At the age of 22 he started playing volleyball and for now he is unstoppable. Much to the delight of his cardiologist. “He says: just keep going.”
Rinus’ team of friends meets every Tuesday evening in a sports hall in Helmond. One still fanatically rotates with the arms as a warm-up, but Rinus immediately jumps into the field. “I’ve already warmed up, I washed the dishes at home,” he laughs.
A fun, but also fanatical game of one and a half hours follows. Rinus plays along for an hour and a half, with a break here and there to have a drink. “You can still do this sport into old age”, says Rinus happily.
“He has some very good techniques. I can still learn from them”
“I think it’s really cool,” says Lisa Kabel. At 26 years old, she is the youngest to play this evening. “Sometimes he goes for a ball, then you think, he doesn’t have it anymore. And then he still takes it. He has some very good techniques. I can still learn from it, though.”
Rinus has a hard time sitting still. “If I couldn’t play volleyball, I would just do something else. A little football. You have to keep moving. I was at the cardiologist this morning. Everything was good and I don’t have to come back until next year.”
“People say to me, that’s how I want to grow old.”
Rinus got a pacemaker six years ago. “As long as my pacemaker still works, I will continue. A lot of people say to me, that’s how I want to grow old. You just have to keep going and live a little healthy.”
But luck is also a factor, Rinus thinks. “Maybe I just have good genes that I can still be in good shape later in life.” The rest of the team does take Rinus’s age into account. “You don’t see him sliding anymore,” says Lisa Kabel. “And if he doesn’t have a ball, then we’re really not going to yell, couldn’t you have it?”
Rinus hopes to be able to continue with his passion for a long time to come. “The best are the tournaments that we play against other teams. We recently had a beach volleyball tournament. That was so nice to participate in,” he beams.