The 29th of February a large number of Tartletes travelled to the Omnisport in Apeldoorn to participate or volunteer at the Dutch student championships indoor. As Tartlétos was organizing the competition, there were nearly 35 members of our association present.
The first athlete to show his skills was Gerard in the heats of the 60mH, he won his heat with ease, qualifying for the finals, in which he went on to win the gold medal in 8.25s, an improvement of the club record with nearly 0.8 seconds! After this great performance it was Verena’s turn to perform over her hurdles between two long jump attempt. With a nice race which she really enjoyed she finished in 12th. In the long jump she participated together with fellow Tartletes Elise and Naomi. They both put down a nice performance, with Verena jumping 4.69m, Elise 4.88m and Naomi settling for 4.19m. Meanwhile, Jelger was shot putting on the other side of the track. As he has been troubled by injury for the last year, this was a competition to find out how far he was in his recovery. Surprisingly, he came within 50cm of his old PB with a nice 11.50m, leaving him in 7th. Before he was even done, he already had to line up alongside of Ken and Gijs for the 60m. After a fierce battle, Jelger just wasn’t able to overtake Gijs, finishing just a mere 0.03 seconds behind. A few heats later, Ken managed to qualify himself for the semi-finals, where he broke his PB and equalled the club record with a great 7.24 seconds. The last Tartlete to perform in the morning was Marloes in the pole vault. She managed to jump 2.40m, placing her in 7th, while improving yet another club record.
After this exciting morning it was the 60m for women that started of the afternoon. In this, Marlieke ran her first sprint race ever. After a good race she finished in 9.15s, leaving her just outside of the qualifying mark for the semi-finals. Next it was Thomas (vd Heijde) his turn to start his 800m, another athlete troubled by injuries in the last year. He had a preservative race, finishing in 2:06.13 without too much effort. This performance leads to believe he has the potential to go much faster this season. After the running it was back to the jumping events, with Naomi and Verena battling it out in high jump. After a close battle, they both jumped 1.40m, sharing the 15th spot in the rankings.
Following this, there were 4 Tartletes lining up for the 400m sprint. The first of those was Thomas (vd Vooren). Despite some pushing and being boxed in on the final straight, he still managed to get within 0.3s of his PB. Next Erik and Stijn started of their heat, in which Erik showed his great skill over this distance, improving his indoor PB by over a second to 51.27s. Stijn also had a good race, following Erik home in 51.97s. Lastly, Koen showed his sprinting capabilities, finishing his heat in 52.31s. After all this sprinting, it was time for the 3000m runners to perform. Tim ran at a very constant pace, leading him to a time, just below 10 minutes. Tessa, one of the members of the organizing committee, had a good race, and managed to just edge out her opponent before the finish to come home with the silver, just missing out on gold by a second.
A few minutes later, it was time for the next event, the triple jump. With 9.84m in her last attempt, Celia managed to get 7th. With the men Gerard was able to take home his second medal of the championships, while shattering another club record with his 13.39m jump, which was good enough for the silver medal. Next, there were 6 Tartletes, divided over 6 heats of the 200m. Thomas (vd Vooren) again managed to get close to his personal best with his 24.66s performance. Gijs came within a tenth of his indoor PB as well, running 24.29. In the next heat, Stijn came to 24.35s. Erik ran a stunning 200m, beating his PB with 23.11s, getting him 4th place. Jelger, lining up for his third event of the day, was just not able to break the 25s barrier, running 25.04s. The last Tartlete to start was Ken. He managed to break the club record, win his heat, and more importantly, win the gold medal, with a nice time of 22.74s. In the women’s 200m, Marlieke and Chrisja faced off in what was the first 200m for both. Chrisja just managed to beat Marlieke by 2 tenths: 30.13s to 30.36s. After them, Elise took to the stage to round up her 200m in 28.21s.
The last Tartlete to put down an individual performance was Marloes, participating in the shot put. Her 8.81m throw was good enough for the 12th place in the final standings. Finishing of the day were Gijs, Thomas vdV, Jelger and Stijn with the 4x200m. After a close battle with the team from Delft, they managed to win the gold medal in 1:36.03, which is nearly a three second improvement of the club record. After this great day, the NSK was ended off with a nice party at the squash centre. The committee did a great job organizing this competition and everything around it, let’s hope that the next edition will be just as succesfull.