With 50 Dutch athletes now confirmed, the Netherland’s Technical Director Vincent Kortbeek is eagerly looking forward to the Apeldoorn 2025 European Athletics Indoor Championships from 6-9 March with a sea of orange support to inspire the home team.
Speaking at the Dutch Olympic Centre in Papendal on Thursday (27), Kortbeek was in upbeat mood with a week to go.
“50 is a crazy amount for an indoor tournament for the Netherlands,” he said. “Because it’s a home competition, ideally, we wanted to have athletes in all events. But in some events, we don’t have the quality of athletes - at the moment. But now, I think it’s only four events that we don’t have any competitors. In all others, we have one or more, so that’s great.”
Everyone keen for Apeldoorn
Following a year in which included the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, he was braced for a post-Games dip in enthusiasm, but the opportunity of a home championships has inspired the Dutch team.
“What I feel great about is that after Olympic year, people always have motivational issues, skipping the indoor season to take a little bit more time off. I didn’t have any trouble with this,” he said.
“Everyone was keen in going to Apeldoorn to perform at the European indoors, way more than world indoors or the summer.”
He added that world indoor 400m record-holder Femke Bol, who will make her only appearance of the indoor season in the relays, was keen to commit to Apeldoorn 2025.
“The situation with Femke, she took some time, but said that ‘Whatever the situation is, I want to be part of the team in Apeldoorn as well.’ It makes it very easy for me to have a motivated team here and it motivates me, of course as well,” he said.
High expectations
Thanks to the exploits of world indoor champion Bol, twice European shot put champion Jessica Schilder, world indoor 400m silver medallist Lieke Klaver, twice European indoor 60m hurdles gold medallist Nadine Visser and others, expectations have never been higher for the Dutch team.
But Kortbeek, who has held the role since 2022, is trying to remain grounded.
“Almost every tournament, we have the biggest group of athletes ever coming to the tournament and. Most of the tournaments so far, we came back with most of the medals we have ever won. So, I stepped in at the right time maybe?” he jokes.
And for Apeldoorn, he places as much importance on the success of the event as he does on the performances of the Netherlands team.
“First of all, it needs to be like a sports festival,” he said. “It would be great if the event itself is great, whatever results the Dutch athletes do.
“But from my perspective, as performance manager for Dutch athletics, I am not going pin that on the amount of medals. We definitely have a lot of medal contenders. I would be surprised if we don’t make it to the top five of the medal table and maybe aiming higher than top five?”
Inspirational crowds
And he is sure that the sold-out arena, packed with Dutch fans will be an important factor. “We have seen in the last two years at the nationals, when Femke ran (400m) world record(s), it was because of the huge crowd in this stadium.
“Now we know the whole crowd will be there and will be orange and be cheering for the Dutch team and that will definitely help,” he said.
Chris Broadbent for European Athletics