Terrier Tracks: Jozef Klaassen on qualifying for Beijing
July 15, 2008 | Men's Rowing
In January 2007 I decided to take a year off of school to focus on trying to make the Olympics. After the IRA regatta in May, I left with a rower from Northeastern and my teammate Meindert [Klem] for Amsterdam. Unfortunately I broke a rib in the 2007 summer racing season in Europe and couldn't be on the team. Then the Dutch 8 failed to qualify for the Olympics at Worlds 2007, where seven of the eight Olympic berths were awarded.
Training for this season began in earnest in September with a large group of 16 guys. The group was then selected down to 12 in December. During January and February we had two major training camps - one in Portugal and the other in Spain - where the eight was gradually selected and finally four more rowers were sent home. This was quite a trying time, and several rowers who were confident on making the boat failed to do so, including two former Olympic rowers and other rowers from the eight that failed at Worlds the year before. The crew is relatively young, with only one ex-Olympian, Diderik Simon, who has already won one gold and two silver medals at the past three Games.
Training with the crew continued and the April training camp in Italy was used to prepare us for the first of three World Cup regattas. The first regatta in Munich was used as an initial race to see what speed we had after our winter of training. Following Munich, we trained hard in Amsterdam for the second world cup regatta in Lucerne. While preparing for this regatta, we had the feeling that there was definitely speed in the boat. However, we were wrong and finished last, behind several other countries that, like us, were attempting to win the last qualifying spot at the Olympic Qualification Regatta in Poland. We were very disappointed, because we were convinced the crew was under-performing and capable of much better results.
Returning to Amsterdam, four of us in the boat decided that it was time for radical change because otherwise we were not going to achieve our Olympic goal. We fired both our coaches and asked David McGowan from Australia to replace them, and we invited Meindert and his double sculls partner, Olivier Siegelaar, to race for a seat in the boat (These two had previously decided not to join the group for the eight and to try qualify for the Olympics in the double sculls.). We changed the lineup completely within the boat, giving our (until then) quiet-spoken veteran Simon the stroke-seat and a sort of captainship of the eight. We also replaced our coxswain. All these MAJOR changes took place only two weeks before the most important race of the summer.
With two weeks to go before the qualification regatta in Poznan, our new coach really got into us and pulled the team very quickly together. Entering the heat in Poland, we were very confident about the quality of our rowing during training, but now we were racing against seven other countries for the final spot for the Olympics. We expected that Russia would be fast (although they had not been in any races yet this summer). Furthermore, we had raced and lost to France in Lucerne, so they were good.
Then there was Estonia, Italy, Belarus, Croatia, and Switzerland; Estonia, Italy and Belarus were unknown to us as they had not raced during the world cup regattas. There were two heats with Russia favored to win one, and Croatia (in our heat) the other favorite. We had a fast start to our heat, got out in front of the field and from there knew that the race was going to end well. We comfortably finished first with the fastest time of both heats. Heading into the final two days later, we were nervous but also quietly confident.
Coming out of the start Russia kept up with us in the final, but at 700m we made a push which put us a whole length in front, and the race was clinched. As we crossed the finish line, we could not believe what we had just achieved! As we received our medals, many - us included - were astonished at how we had managed to turn around our team in two weeks from one that was struggling to make finals to one that destroyed all the competition at the qualification regatta.
I have reached a goal I had been working towards for the past eight years, which is an incredible feeling. Although qualification is not the end-goal, after all the ups and downs qualifying is a major milestone conquered! To arrive at that point, which you always believed all your life you had it in you to obtain, living eight years in a sort quiet arrogance, confident in your belief you can obtain your goal makes standing on the podium and thinking "We are going to the Olympics" an satisfying thing.
Returning to Amsterdam we took three days off and then it was straight back into training. Our objective: MEDAL.
