She is the poster girl of the Nederlandse Loterij ISU World Short Track Championships 2024 presented by Odido and not for no reason: with four gold medals at the last World Championships this weekend in Rotterdam, Xandra Velzeboer is one of the big signposts of Dutch shorttrack. Seven years ago she watched her shorttrack heroes and heroines in Ahoy from the stands. Now she has that status herself.
“Well, do you actually have any memories of the previous World Shorttrack Championships in Ahoy?” she said. At the press event for the Dutch shorttrackers, the question regularly comes up about how they experienced the 2017 event: The energy, the ambience, the thousands of fans. It was something unique for a developing sport, the organizers promised, and this weekend will be even better. Back to those memories. Jens van ‘t Wout thinks for a moment. “Almost nothing,” he says almost embarrassed. “I was kicked out by Xandra that I didn’t remember anything. Apparently I was there with her and some friends. Well, I don’t remember. It was shorttrack, but might as well have been a soccer game.” Oh well, it must be due to the fact that Van ‘t Wout came to the Netherlands later and was just getting into the sport. “For me it was just a sport I was doing, but when I was here I didn’t really have the idea: I want to become a short tracker.”
Read more on Schaatsen.nl
