Rated as an outside bet due to an Achilles injury the previous year, the Dutch athlete chose the perfect time to reach a career peak, a ferocious finish propelling her to gold. The welcome home to the Netherlands brought an unexpected bump in the road, though
Coming out of 1991, I knew I had to be patient during that next year and not try to rush things, but I also had to qualify for Barcelona. There were plenty of good races in Europe, but they were more technical.
I knew I needed to get the qualifying standard so I had to plan, going to a race in France where I knew it would be fast, just to get it out of the way. It was all about my training, because I was always a bit injury prone, but if I could train steadily for a couple of months then it would be okay.
Having an Olympics closer to the Netherlands was great but it made no difference to my Mum. She had never been on a plane before and at one point she told me she’d bought tickets, but only for the 800m final. It was months before but I said: “Buy tickets for the heats as well.” She was like: “No, it’s way too expensive.”
That was partly because I didn’t come from a traditional athletics family. She didn’t really have an idea of how it worked. I didn’t even have that many friends come to Barcelona. My athletics life and my social life were quite separate, even if they [my friends and family] all supported me very much.
I won 10 of my 11 races that year and so I got to the Olympics with a plan: it was all about making sure I would be in the final because, in the 800m, sometimes good athletes go out in the heat or semis because of wrong tactics. I thought: “When I’m in the final, then anything is possible.” I was not really counting on the medal, but I was certainly considering that I had a chance of one.
Sometimes, 800s are run slowly and [if that had happened] then it wouldn’t have been me winning out. My feeling was to stick with a race as long as possible and then I had a kick. I always had the mental strength to go pretty deep, because the part between 600m and the finish is not fun for any 800m runner, so you have to stay as relaxed as possible in that part and still be able to go as fast as possible with 200m to go.
I knew that, as long as I was there with 120m left, I was confident – not to win, but to be in contention. I knew when my kick could start and, coming through the middle of the final bend, I passed Ella Kovacs on the inside and thought: “There’s one gone”. And when we came out of the bend I felt strong. I felt I could accelerate.
But I had to choose: do I go outside or do I stay inside? Ella was leaning to go outside, so that’s why I waited a bit and went inside. It was a decisive moment, because I also felt I could go outside if I needed to and get the same result. I was quite confident. Sometimes you feel that you are faster than the others. You feel that you can still accelerate by.
When I finished, I didn’t feel so much surprise about the win – it was more the surprise about the time. I felt a lot of relief and exhaustion. I was completely concentrated before the race and I barely remember anything about it. You could just see that full concentration on my faceat the end.
When I got back to the Netherlands, there was a lot of celebration but also it cost me money. I was on an unemployment fund and I had done it very nicely and cleanly. I discussed this with the government, and they were like: “Yes, we support you.” Under the system in Holland back then, I got support and I also had an agreement that, as soon as I was going to earn money, I would report it and then the help would be cut. And that was totally fine.
But they had already sent me a letter while I was still in Barcelona to take it away and that was really annoying for me, because I felt I should have had the opportunity to go there myself and tell them: “Hey, I’ve been going to earn more money.”
When you’re an Olympic champion, it’s not like, all of a sudden, your bank account is loaded. I thought the timing was so wrong, to already have a letter from the government on my doorstep while I was still at the Games. It was all a very strange way to do it.
But I was not too sad about it. It was a little bit the Dutch way. On the one hand, you can do well but, on the other hand, you should not change. You should stay the same. Just because you’ve got a gold medal, don’t be too important. We’re always on both sides. But, the morning I came home, I still couldn’t walk along the street to my home because it was packed with people celebrating. I could never complain about that.
