“This weekend we looked at the largest, the most beautiful and the best rowing team in Europe.” These are words of praise and not entirely coincidentally spoken by technical director Hessel Evertse of the KNRB rowing association.
He saw how the Dutch rowers dominated the European Championship in Poznan, Poland last weekend with seven gold medals, one silver and two bronze. The last time a country took so many titles in a European final battle was in 1965. Then the Soviet Union was supreme.
Flexibility
Due to the corona pandemic, the sports year 2020 is different in everything and cannot be compared with any other year. So the big question beforehand was how everyone would appear at the start.
“You take everything into account, but we have really improved over the past year. That’s what the figures say, but it is also evident from the impressions and the stories of the rowers themselves”, says Evertse. “Whoever handles these conditions best will win. And we did.”
“If you suddenly have to peak in October instead of July, you have to adjust your periodization. That requires flexibility from our rowers. How they did that is admirable.”
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