Infernal stomachache prevents Van Klinken from eating scared rabbits

• Luke Blegboom

  NOS Editor in Eugene, Oregon

Achieve the best performance of your young career on the highest podium while you are in excruciating pain. “It looks like your organs are being pulled out of your body.” Disc thrower Jorinde van Klinken imagined a lot about her debut at the World Championships in Athletics. but this? number.

The fact that the first World Cup player finally ended an afternoon of struggle with a fourth place could be described as nothing less than a miracle. Of course, she secretly hoped to have gone further than 64.97 metres, especially with a throw that was initially declared void.

Of course she would have preferred not to have to admit too much to China’s Feng Bin, the surprise gold winner with 69.12 metres. “But being number 4 in the world at 22 is really weird.”

The performance at Hayward Field was the nearly inevitable result of a month’s worth of Murphy’s Law. Van Klinken has accumulated relapse after relapse in recent weeks. “In fact, it went so wrong that the path of this finale didn’t really matter to me.”

Van Klinken, a student in the United States, first heard that she had to give up her place at Arizona State University. Although she is enjoying herself in Tempe, a move is in the pipeline. Coach Brian Plotrich, the former discus thrower who finished 25th at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, recently announced his departure.

And so Van Klinken moves with him. “There is no doubt about it,” said the global management student firmly. “He has taken me to such a high level that I don’t want to work with anyone else.”

Initially, the coach and pupil were scheduled to leave for Tennessee, but that turnaround became uncertain earlier this week. Randolph Ross, the son of a Tennessee athletics coach, recently missed a doping test, putting the first position in jeopardy.

“That can be added too,” Van Klinken sighed. Because last month it looked like Van Klinken would be considered an illegal alien in the United States. After finishing her studies, she was in danger of not being able to renew her student visa in time due to bureaucratic concerns.

“No matter how many emails I sent, it always went wrong. I spent the 60-day maximum to sort everything out. In the end, it all worked out on the last day. But you want two weeks there for the trophy world you don’t care about of course “.

During the same period she sustained a thigh injury after several throws in both the playoffs and the final fight. With the fourth in her pocket, she was finally able to laugh at what she experienced. “Every day was a surprise to me.”

Meanwhile, Van Klinken is quickly making a name for himself at the top of the world discus throw. After crossing the pond in January 2021 to try her luck in the United States, she threw the one-kilogram disc another nine meters in six months.

With a length of 1.81 meters and 1.83 in wingspan, it does not have the “arms of a chimpanzee” needed to compete at the highest level. Van Klinken switched from the classic block throw to the more modern jump throw at Blutreich’s behest, making an extra spin when the disc leaves the hand.

It yielded a Dutch record of 70.22 meters in May 2021. Until 2016, it was in the name of Rhea Stallman, whose throw of 71.22 was removed from the IAAF books after Stallman admitted to doping.

In a sport in which the top ten in the eternal standings have been filled entirely by athletes from the former Eastern Bloc (with the world record of 76.80m named pitcher GDR Gabriele Reinsch as a questionable relic from the doping past), Van Klinken has your speed and blast. and sports.

Her reputation as an extroverted and now successful young woman has helped speed up her life, as Eugene’s semi-finalist notes. “I saw those other girls looking at me like frightened rabbits.” She described it as illustrative of her small world. When athletes from other departments treat each other amicably, this is not the case in her discipline.

“It’s all hate and envy. No one is happy with the other’s performance. They’d rather eat each other.”

She assumed that the behavior of her competitors stems only from uncertainty. “Otherwise, you are not afraid of the opponent, are you?”

It has been firmly said that Van Klinken himself would continue to distance himself from such idiosyncrasies. If the sport had finally been freed from its doping problems, that’s what it would have, she wanted to say. “I don’t understand. You don’t have to envy a better opponent, do you?”