The 15th of February, almost 20 Tartletes travelled to the distant city of Eindhoven to participate in the Dutch student championships cross. The day started off with the long cross, which started simultaneously for the men as well as the women. Directly after the start Guus took to the lead group, in which he managed to stay for the entire race, resulting in a nice top 10 position. Behind him, Tim and Pim managed to get further and further up the field during the race, resulting in two more respectable finishing positions. Daan just was not able to stay with them and had to run his own race, just like Julien behind him.
Jana, Iris and Dagmar fought a close battle over their 6600m, which resulted in top 20 for both Jana and Dagmar. At the non-student category, Iris even managed to get second.
Directly after the long crosses, Sabine and Tessa lined up for their short cross over 2700m. From the start, both Tartletes took their places at the front of the race. After a relatively slow start, Sabine accelerated to leave all opponents far behind and take the win. Far behind her the battle for silver and bronze was close between Tessa and 4 other athletes. In the end she just lost out and had to settle for 5th place.
After this it was the men’s turn for their short cross. There were 6 Tartletes, ranging from sprinter to ultrarunner. Koen instantly took the lead when the gun sounded, and was in podium contention for the whole race, resulting in a 3rd place. Behind him Ferran just wasn’t able to take up a top 10 position, settling for 11th . Thomas managed his race well and got further and further up the field, finishing in a nice position. Niek had a hard time keeping up with the high pace of this very short distance, resulting in him getting outsprinted by Stijn, who overtook him by taking a non-existent shortcut and almost pushing Niek off the track. Closely behind Ton came home as final Tartlete of the day.
To end the day of Tartlétos participated in the 4x400m relay with 2 teams: De stierenvechters van Davos (Daan, Guus, Tim, Niek) and “Schiet op” (Julien, Ton, Thomas, Stijn). Under loud cheering from the crowd of Tartletes and Tonnie, the battle broke loose. In the first leg Julien just managed to edge Daan out and hand over the baton first. In the next leg Guus was able to keep up with Ton, cousing the two teams to still be neck to neck at the next exchange. Thomas had a very good run, just managing to get some daylight between Tim and himself. He handed the baton to Stijn for the anchor leg, who saw Niek getting closer at the technical part of the course, but managed to get away on the straights, taking home the win. Just behind him Niek ensured the silver medal for the other team. Those results are very promising for the relays at the NSK Indoor the 29th of February.