Last Saturday, the NSK Teams 2023 took place in Groningen. Even though it is quite far to go all the way to Groningen, it was worth it! The day was filled with gezelligheid, PBs and a even an unexpected bronze medal for the men’s team!
The first event of the day was the Swedish relay. To spice things up, Vitalis had decided to reverse the order of this relay. Instead of the usual order of 400-300-200-100, it was now 100-200-300-400. Team Eindhoven men’s relay team, consisting of Kjell, Robin, Tom and Rens had to wait a bit longer after their warming up, because the exchange zones had not been indicated properly. The wait, however, was worth it! The guys ran 2:08.38, which gave us 4 points. Big kudos to Kjell for running the 100m as a middle distance runner!
Next up was long jump for the men. Tim participated in this, and he leaped to a distance of 6.63m, which gave the team 6 points!
At 12:15, the 5000m for the men was held. In the scorching heat (with temperatures of 32°C) Piotr and Ju-Young competed for some good points. In the end, Piotr finished in 4th with a time of 17:02.05, and Ju-Young finished in 21:06.86.
While the guys were running, Audrey started in the high jump. She scored 4 points for the team with her jump over 1.30m.
Then it was finally time for some throwing! Bram and Rens competed in the shotput. Rens came to a distance of 8.65m (6 points for the team!) and Bram broke his PB by 41cm, throwing 8.50m!
After already scoring a massive 6 points in the long jump, Tim scored even more points in the triple jump! Those 7 points were earned by his jump of 13.01m, only 12cm behind the winner of the event.
Back to some running: Nastia competed in the 800m. Despite the heat, she managed to run 2:31.32, scoring 6 points! After the women, the men also ran their 800m with Maron and Kjell in the second heat running 2:11.33 and 2:16.24. In the last heat, Lorens scored the points for the men, running 2:02.13 in a tactical race. Just like Nastia, he scored 6 points.
While the 800m was being run, Merel participated in the shot put. With her throw of 7.81m in her first attempt she scored 3 points. Winning the shot put was Michelle with a throw of 10.58m. Unfortunately for Team Eindhoven, she competed for Team Enschede.
After having sacrificed himself to run the 300m in the Swedish relay, Tom also ran the 110mH. While he wasn’t very happy about his last hurdle, he still managed to run 17.74, which is a great time given the circumstances. With this, he scored 5 points for the team! After his hurdle-race, he also had to do high jump, where he equaled his PB of 1.60m, scoring a vital point for the team!
Javelin throw was the other throwing event of the day, and Bram managed to break his PB again, throwing further than 30m for the first time in his career! He came to a distance of 30.82m! However, it was Tim who scored the points for the team, having thrown 38.37m, which was a PB! With the women, Merel threw her javelin to a distance of 25.14m, scoring 3 points. Michelle got third with a throw of 34.10m in her final attempt.
Then it was finally time for the 100m! For the men, we had three competitors: Arend, Steven and Robin. Unfortunately, the organization made a mistake, which meant that Arend’s time was not registered. This meant he could run after the prize ceremony, where he ran 14.06 in his first ever competition!
Then we also had Steven, who ran 12.73, and Robin, who ran 11.70. Robin scored the points, 6 in total!
The very last event of the day was the Olympic relay! And yes, also in this event Vitalis decided that they wanted to do something special: they also reversed the order in which the distances are run. Instead of the usual 800-400-200-200, now the teams had to run 200-200-400-800. For Team Eindhoven, Robin started well, after which Steven ran his 200m. Then, Rens got the baton and ran his lap. To close, Lorens received the baton and he split is 800 in right around 2:04’. He almost managed to catch Team Groningen in the home stretch, but he came shy of this by 0.05s. In the end, in the Olympic relay 6 points were scored!
In total, Team Eindhoven for the men scored 57 points, which gave the team an unexpected third place finish. The women scored 22 points and placed 7th.
