Last Sunday it was time for the long-anticipated promotion/degradation competition for the men’s second division team. This could be the day that, for the first time in history, an Asterix team will be in the first division. It was expected that this year’s team could do very well as we have a lot of great athletes and already finished second in the second division. Unfortunately, there were some injuries and some cancellations, which made it hard to fulfil the prognosis. Nevertheless, our Gauls did their very best to make the promotion this year. So, on Sunday morning our Gauls travelled from their homes to Vught. It was a very hot and sunny day, so a nice Asterix party tent was very much needed for the shade.
The first event was Triple Jump, in which Boudewijn finished 5th and scored eight points for the team. A great start of the day! Boudewijn furthermore did high Jump, in which he finished 6th overall. Also a great result. Unfortunately, he had some pain in his ankle so could not participate in the long jump event, but more on that later.
Jim then had to go to shotput and carried the team on the throwing events as he had an injury in his groin. Although he was very much needed, he did a great job on shotput throwing 10,60 meters!
Gijs and Teun had to run the 100 meters after that. Gijs had an amazing start and finished in a time of 11,64! He scored 5 points for the team. Teun had a small foot injury, and his start was not as good as Gijs, but still managed to run a 11,79.
Thomas was in his element in the 400 meters and ran 53,5 second and scored 5 points for the team. He was not very happy with the race, but he was given another opportunity in the last event.
When Jim was busy throwing the discuss, Jens and Uko were running the 1500 meters. Jens already ran 800 meters and became 4th. Now Jens and Uko finished second and third respectively, which were some needed points for the team!
After discuss, Jim had to participate in hammer throw as our thrower Oscar was not able to attend the competition. Jim threw an amazing PB of 18,07, which was unfortunately last, but all our gauls were cheering him to first place 🙂
Then the long-anticipated run of Manolo began. He had to run the 5000 meters, which is the first distance he has run for Asterix. He did an amazing Job and stayed ahead of the rest (in a time of 14:59,51), thereby scoring 12 points for the team. Matthijs also ran an amazing time of 16:10,38 in the sun.
Bjorn ran an amazing 300 meter hurdles, but on the last 100 meters of the 400 meter hurdles he slowed down quite a lot. ‘I did not have the stamina’, he later explained, which made a lot of sense as he was still on crutches 2 months ago! So, a very good job of Bjorn finishing 9th.
In the 200 meters, Teun did not participate due to his foot injury, but Gijs (after getting a warning from the referee for being too nervous in the starting block (; ) did a great job in a time of 23,93!
Then it was time for the event of the day with Thomas. He was not on the list of long jump, but as Boudewijn was injured, Thomas had to substitute. In the end he jumped a distance of 6,49 meters, which is almost 20 centimetres above his PR, without almost any training on the long jump event. So, congrats to Thomas, scoring 8 points for the team!
The last event was the 4×400. Thomas, Bjorn, and the unexperienced 400 athletes Matthijs and Uko all ran an amazing 400 meters, but only got second to last. Still, they did an amazing job and scored 4 points for the team!
All in all, it was a long and hot day with some nice performances, but also some unfortunate injuries. Due to the heat there were only two PB’s, which Jim and Thomas can be very proud of. We knew that at the beginning it would be hard to promote to the first division. With our full and strongest team we could have made it, but this Sunday was not the place and time. Nevertheless, who knows what the future brings and on to next year. We had a great time in Vught and of course we had a lot of fun together with our coaches and spectators!