Last Saturday, arguably the most exciting NSK of the year took place in Leiden: the NSK Teams organized by our friends from Currimus. With over 50 Gauls and non-Gauls studying in Eindhoven, the purple delegation was ready to show their worth! Competing were two men’s teams and one team for the women. It is with great pride that we can say that we have achieved the best result since 2021!
Before the events start, the yearly flag parade was held. Screaming Kernkraft on the top of our lungs, Eindhoven showed that we were a force to be reckoned with!
Starting off the day right were the men in the 4×100: Team Eindhoven 1, consisting of Thomas, Rens, Bram Geven and Juno managed to beat both Utrecht and Delft – finishing only behind Nijmegen – in a time of 43.38! Team Eindhoven 2, consisting of Jeroen, Mack, Divi and Tomáš ran a time of 46.67, finishing 8th. The women got third in their 4×100, with Hannah, Lucette, Anke and Julia finishing in 53.22.
With this relay, this day filled with athletics of the highest level began in earnest!
The next event was the 800m for the men. After starting conservatively, Jens managed to overtake everyone on the back stretch of the second lap (which from a distance looked really impressive), securing the win and the 12 points for Team Eindhoven 1. Finishing in 3rd and breaking 2 for the third time in his running career was Gijs Buist, a soon-to-be-member of Asterix. Finishing in 6th we had Maron, scoring 8 points for Team Eindhoven 2, running 2:01.49.
Poor Maron then found out that someone mistakenly took his spikesbag including his phone. Mister PR then had to spend the rest of the day without his phone…
Just after the 800, the high jump for the men began! Joël had been working on his high jump for quite some time, and this work payed off: he managed to jump a new PB of 1.85m! He cleared this height on his third attempt, securing a 5th place and 8 points. Unfortunately, Tim Klein got injured during his high jump, which also meant he was unable to participate in the long jump.
Next up was the first individual event for the women: the 800m. We had Hannah and Nastia competing, and they performed well! Hannah ran 2:39.94, and Nastia ran 2:24.99. With this, Nastia scored 9 points. But that is not all: Nastia also had to run the steeple chase a mere 35 minutes after finishing her 800m… There she also performed remarkably well, also scoring 9 points!
After all these running events, it was Michelle’s turn to do shot put. She threw 9.39, and with that she scored 6 points. Also participating in the shot put was Meike, who threw 8.06m. After this, the men started with their shot put. There, we had 4 athletes: Tim de Greef and Rens in Team 1, and Bram and Harm in Team 2. Their results: Rens with 11.47, Tim with 10.71, Harm with 8.97 and Bram with 8.68. Rens scored 7 points and Harm scored 4.
Following the example set by Nastia, 4 legends lined up for the steeple chase for the men: our Dutch Championships bronze-medallist Tim de Wild, as well as Domingos, Kjell and Jules. Tim took the win and the 12 points in 9:21.09, with Jules in 10:45.19, Domingos in 11:21.91 and Kjell in 12:49.35. Domingos thought that doing just a steeple was not enough, so the day after he participated in the Big10, running a massive PB on the 10km on the road: 36.59.
After the shot put, Michelle and Meike also participated in the javelin. There Michelle scored a very nice 2nd place with a throw of 33.07m, and Meike threw 24.33m.
On to the hurdles! In the highly anticipated match-up in the hurdles with the men, there were a whopping 6 athletes with a PB below 16 seconds! In the fastest heat, Bjorn managed to run 16.24, securing 4th place! Joël ran in the second heat together with Tom, and they ran 16.43 (another PB for Joël) and 17.24. Unfortunately, Jim was unable to finish the race due to pain in his lower back. After the men, the women ran the 100mH, where Michelle finished in 17.45 and 5th place.
After the men had already competed in the high jump, it was now time for the women to do the same. For Team Eindhoven Anke competed, and she won the event with a jump over 1.60m! Lucette also competed, and she jumped over 1.20m.
Next to the high jump, there is also long jump! With the men unfortunately Tim Klein was not able to compete due to him getting injured in the high jump. Team Eindhoven 1 then still had Thomas, who was beaten by Tomáš (6.16 vs 6.45). For Tomáš, it was his second furthest jump ever! With the women, Julia jumped 5.43 and with that she finished 2nd. Then we also had Samarijn, who jumped to a distance of 4.28m.
Back to some more running! It was now time for the 200m. In Team Eindhoven 1, Rens and Jim competed, with Rens finishing in 23.87, scoring 7 points. Jim ran 24.72, just a bit faster than Mack (24.74), who ran for the second team. Jeroen also competed for the second team, and he ran 25.96. In the 200 for the women, Magdalena ran 30.67, scoring 4 points.
Before he competed in the shot put, Tim de Greef warmed up by competing in the javelin! He threw 49.72m, with Divi from the second team with 44.41m, Jim from the first team with 42.32m and Mack with 41.80m.
The only events still to discuss before the 4×400 relays are the 5000 and the 3000. In the 5000, Matthijs fought a heroic battle for the win, which he unfortunately lost: he finished 2nd in a time of 15:27.52. Finishing in third was Paul, who ran 15:53.63. For the second team we had Ids (17:10.06), Rowan (18:21.51 after a tear in his calf) and Cristian (18:35.11). With the women we had Kim, who ran 11:50.36, and Lora, who ran 11:52.17.
The last event of the day was the 4×400. With the men, a ridiculously fast team was assembled: Bjorn, Bram, Ilja and Juno powered their way to the win in the 16th fastest time run in the Netherlands in 2024: 3:26.22. That was almost 10 seconds faster than the number 2! Team Eindhoven 2 finished in 3:49.14, after valiant efforts by Tom, Divi, Cristian and Maron. Nastia, Kim, Magdalena and Lena then ran for the women and they finished in 4:27.70: 6 points!
In the end, the men just missed out on winning for the first time since 2021: they missed out by 1 point only… Team Eindhoven 2 finished in 8th place. The women scored their best result since 2021, finishing 4th. These results sure make us believe that more is possible: we are already looking forward to next year!
Written by Lorens