Last Saturday, the first NSK of 2024 took place in Maastricht: the NSK Cross! A big group of Gauls journeyed to Maastricht for the first NSK organized by Uros in over 10 years!
The first event of the day was the Short Cross. Unlike what the name would suggest, this cross was anything but short: the distance was a massive 4.3km! This was quite to the liking of Matthijs, who demolished his competition, finishing 25 full seconds in front of the silver medalist. His time was 15:27. Placing 6th was Allard in a time of 17:15, followed by Ramon in 7th in 17:20. Sergio followed not too far behind in 17:37 and 11th. Then we also had Kjell (16th in 18:20) and Luc (22nd in 19:21). Sophie competed in the short cross for the women, where she finished in an awesome 16th place in 23:44.
The second event of the day was the Long Cross. This was even further than the Short Cross: 10.5km for the men and 8.7km for the women. Rowan and Britte were real warriors, finishing 18th and 9th respectively.
This year, a new event was added to the program: the Sprincross! Andrii managed to secure the win in 5:45, just in front of Lorens who finished second in 5:59. Finishing closely behind were Rafal (5th in 6:18), Allard (9th in 6:32), Ramon (10th in 6:40), Maron (13th in 6:49), Boudewijn (15th in 6:58), Tom (16th in 7:00), Luc (21st in 7:28), and Bram (23rd in 8:13). With a grand total of 10 Gauls in the men’s race, Asterix accounted for 43% of the participants in the sprintcross for the men!
With the women, Nastia unfortunately just missed out on the podium, finishing 4th in 7:26, only one second behind third place…
She did not have to be sad for long, because in the mixed relay, she secured the silver medal for Team Purple Fire together with Maron, Kim (who came to the NSK just to run the relay) and Lorens.
Team De Oude Bokken en de Jonge Geit (Matthijs, Boudewijn, Bram and Tim) did a great job and finished 3rd. They did not receive a medal because they competed out of competition.
Team De Paarse Pareltjes, consisting of Tom, Britte, Michelle and Jim finished 13th.
After all these races it was time for a well-deserved dinner and party. At the party, Asterix performed just as well as during the cross!
The next NSK will be the NSK Indoor in Apeldoorn, organized by Phoenix. The subscriptions have already opened, so be quick and subscribe!
Most pictures in this blog were made by Lars van der Valk.