Last weekend, the NSK Track took place. Being the largest NSK of the year in terms of participants, Asterix was of course present with a big group on both days!
In the very first heat of the very first event, Tom ran a 12.00 on the 100m. This was his first event out of a grand total of 6 in this weekend! In the last heat of the 100m, Teun ran 11.73.
The next event was the triple jump for the men, with Gijs scoring a 4th place with a jump of 11.64m. He jumped over 11 meters in 5 out of the 6 jumps!
Next up was shot put for the women. Tessa came to a distance of 8.22m, which saw her finish in 12th place.
After the shot put for the women, it was time for eve more throwing: discus throw for the men! Jim and Bram defended Asterix’ honor, with Jim throwing 32.67m (8th place), and Bram 26.41m (13th place).
Back to some more jumping: Boudewijn participated in the high jump. He jumped over 1.84m, and missed his attempts on 1.87m. With this, he secured the bronze medal, only missing out on the silver because he had more fouls. With his PB being 1.85m, we all expect him to break this PB sometime soon!
After all these technical events, it was finally time for some running: the 1500m! In the first heat, Rowan took the lead early on in hopes of helping Kjell to a PB. They did not succeed, but it was close! Kjell finished in 4:36.67, and Rowan (who was still dealing with the aftermath of a food poisoning) ran 4:45.80. Ju-Young ran 5:13.04 in the same heat. In the second heat, the medals were to be divided! Piotr ran a new PB by 2 seconds of 4:17.34. He was faster because he was wearing a purple singlet for the first time! With this, he secured 7th place. Battling for the win in front were Matthijs and William, with William beating Matthijs with 4:04.63 versus 4:06.69. No PBs, but some nice medals nonetheless!
If all this running was not enough yet, the next event was the 400m! Before the race, Boudewijn expressed that he was not looking forward to this race at all, but he just wanted to get that PB. In this he succeeded, running 57.83! Less that 0.4s behind him we had Stijn with 58.20. Stijn has shown some remarkable progress lately, and with his first sub-60 400 he has shown us that he is on the right track! In the second heat there were 3 Gauls competing against each other! Tom edged out Maron by only 0.01s, with times of 54.80 and 54.81 respectively. Running not too far behind was Domingos, who ran 55.72. In the third heat both Rens and Jim ran, and they were also very close! Rens was slightly faster with 53.36, with Jim finishing in 53.48.
In the 400m for the women, Lianne ran a time of 1:06.82, only 0.8s above her PB!
After all this running, the next event was shot put for the men. Bram was the only Gaul participating there. He managed to throw 7.70m, which made him 9th.
Next up was long jump for the women. Here, Julia managed to get the bronze medal, only 3 cm behind the silver!
Scoring yet another medal was Tim de Wild, running a blistering 9:19.39 on the 3000m Steeplechase. During his run, he even hit a steeple with the knee of his trail leg, which hurt a lot after the race. Luckily he did not feel it that much during the race, and he was more than 7 seconds faster than the runner-up!
After the steeplechase, the women had their javelin throw. With an amazing distance of 30.45m, Sanne threw almost 3 meters further than her PB, and came 8th!
To end the day in style, Asterix created a relay team in the 4×100, AsteriXXX, consisting of Tom, Kjell, Domingos and Teun. They raced very well, and scored a beautiful silver medal! They beat the team in third by only 0.1s!
That concluded the first day of the NSK Track. As usual, there was a great party (Tom called it “the best NSK party I’ve been to, maybe ever”).
The next day was kicked off by the 5000m, where the men and women ran together. After his gold medal in the 1500m, William also won gold in the 5000m, running his last kilometer in faster than 3 minutes!
Starting the second day off right, Bram threw 29.87m on javelin, just not the 30m he was aiming for. We are sure he’ll get it next time though.
Next up we had the 110mH, with Boudewijn running 19.82, Tom with 17.72 and Jim with 16.13. For Tom and Jim this was enough to advance to the final! In that final, both Tom and Jim hit a hurdle, which resulted in Jim unfortunately getting a DNF, and with Tim running 17.77. With this, Tom got 5th.
Then we had the 200m! Riccardo ran a great time of 26.41, Teun ran 23.80 (about 3 tenths above his PB), and Koen ran 22.69. With that, Koen missed out on the final by 0.03s…
The next event was the 800m! In the first heat, Maron battled against Domingos (just like yesterday on the 400), with again Maron winning. Maron finished in 2:07.47, and Domingos ran 2:08.76. In the second heat, Lorens ran a great race, finishing in a very unfortunate 4th place but with a PB of 1:58.53! With this, he managed to beat William, who ran 2:02.02 and finished 6th.
In the 800m for the women, Sanne finished in 14th place, with a great time of 2:51.40!
Completing all throwing events, Bram also competed in the hammer throw! He came to a distance of 17.06m, which was enough for 10th place! Tessa competed with the women, and she threw 29.22m in her fourth attempt! This secured her 8th place!
After the 110mH final, the next hurdles event was the 400mH. Gijs ran it, and he finished with a very impressive time om 1:00.89!
The very last event of the NSK Track 2023 was the Olympic Relay! This is a relay where the runners run 800-400-200-200 meters in that order. It is some kind of 4×400 but then a bit more special! Asterix fielded two teams: Team Toutatis 1 and Het Snelste Toutatis Team. Running the 800 were Lorens and Matthijs, who split 2:01 and 2:02 respectively. They handed the batons over to Jim and Maron. Maron got quite close to overtaking Jim, but Jim managed to stay ahead with his experience in running 400 meters! Unfortunately, another team overtook Team Toutatis 1, and a very tight race to the finish ensued, with Teun overtaking that team again, and then Tom lost the position again. Still, Team Toutatis 1 got 2nd overall, and Het Snelste Toutatis Team got 4th. As you might guess from the name, Het Snelste Toutatis Team was slower than Team Toutatis 1.
It was a great NSK with many medals and PBs! Next year, the NSK Track will be organized by Asterix in Eindhoven! We are already looking forward to it.
Written by Lorens