Henk Grol (36) sits as if petrified next to the tatami, awaiting the very last judo competition in his impressive career. He stares straight ahead with a hollow look, dazed, his head doesn’t look like it. As if they are going to lead him to the slaughter and he has already reconciled himself to his fate.
And yet he will have to compete for bronze in the Nations Cup against Germany. Six judokas take it in turns to compete against each other. For the Netherlands, it could mean a bearable end to a failed Olympic tournament. Only Sanne van Dijke managed to take a medal. She won bronze on Thursday. The overall score was just as meager as it was five years ago in Rio, when only Anicka van Emden managed to take that medal home.
Van Dijke has also won her match, but a little later Noël van ‘t End loses after a long golden score, the extension in which any point is immediately fatal. That match was so intense that an official had to come and wipe the blood off the mat halfway through. “Fuck”, the budokan blares when the judgment is passed. Van ‘t End loses on penalties. Then he collapses, next to the mat. He lies panting on his back, crossing his forearms over his eyes. The man who became world champion two years ago in this historic judo hall had imagined so much more of this tournament. He came to Tokyo to follow in the footsteps of his idol Anton Geesink, from whom he received judo lessons in Slagharen and who became Olympic champion here 57 years ago. Van ‘t End felt strengthened by Geesink. Just before his final, he mentally asked him for help. And he took gold. Thus Van ‘t End was now the favourite. The disappointment was all the greater when it turned out that he could not fulfill that role.
‘No whining story’
That also applied to Henk Grol, who finished 25 seconds after Van ‘t End in the open weight class. The Uzbek Bekmurod Oltiboev just threw him on his back. It was horrifying for Grol, and it only got more painful when he saw that French title favorite Teddy Riner was also surprisingly shot. This might have been the ultimate chance at Olympic gold. And now it passed him by for good. It AD interviewed him just when it happened. Horror dripped from his face in the video. He rubbed his bald skull a few times, made a throw-away gesture and walked out of the picture as only Henk Grol can. “Please don’t make it a whimper,” he said. “This was it. End of story.”
He had often said that after a great disappointment, it was the defeatism that had become part of his image and that also made him popular with the Dutch public. Henk Grol was a raw sportsman, very honest about what he felt inside and also very hard on himself. Even with successes – two Olympic bronzes, three silvers at World Cups – it could always be better.
After Rio, he even announced the end of his own era, empty-handed, in order to regain the resilience in the years that followed to fully immerse himself in an Olympic cycle. But no longer in the under 100kg class – he was sick of losing weight and starving. Without restrictions, he ate iron as if it were bread. His muscles grew, he became more and more impressive, but remained a small in the open class, against giants like Riner. His body also started to hurt, on his joints was the wear. He longed for the end of his career as a judoka. But he had to and would one day be the best in the world. Tokyo was his last chance to do so. In Japan, he would end his career immediately.
Photo Ritchie B. Tongo / EPA
After the defeat against the Uzbek, the Nations Cup followed a day later. And damn if it wasn’t true, the draw rematched him to the man whom, in the emotion of his defeat, he accused of being of little technical ingenuity. Yes, he mastered one technique. And it had just killed him.
Grol couldn’t sleep that night, he didn’t sleep a wink, had sat on his balcony all night. It had been a horror day for him. And it only got worse. Oltiboev awarded him only nineteen seconds a day later. The fall was complete. But his teammates forced extra time and in a decisive game Grol had to face the Uzbek for the third time. This time he did win, after extra time, and the Netherlands continued. It was perhaps the achievement of the judo tournament. And the Henk Grol icon in full.
The Netherlands then won against Brazil and lost without a chance against France. What remained was the battle for bronze against Germany. With a 2-1 deficit – next to Van ‘End Guusje Steenhuis lost her match – it was again up to Grol to keep the Netherlands in the game. He had to get up one more time. Not for himself this time, but for the Dutch team. And he gladly did.
Clean, almost hypothermic
Grol gets up and checks if his suit is closed properly. An official prevents him from entering the tatami yet. He runs his hand across his face. He looks sideways at his opponent, Karl-Richard Frey, an old acquaintance in the 100-pound class. Grol salutes, bowing, as it should be in judo. Then he walks resolutely towards the German. He grabs it by the lapel, pulls, drags, and after 1 minute, 48 seconds, he hits him on the back. One of the greatest judokas the Netherlands has ever known ends his career clean, businesslike, almost hypothermic. But that changes when he no longer has the further course of the battle for bronze in his own hands. When he has to watch others decide how he will leave the sport.
He takes the mask that an official handed him, grumpily, like a little boy who didn’t get his way. But suddenly he jumps up with that big body of his, as if he’s been stung by a wasp. Sanne Verhage seems to make ippon and that would mean that the Netherlands prevents 3-2. “Ippon, ippon,” shouts Grol, his arms in the air, fingers stretched out. He turns around, asks for support from the people in orange who are sitting behind him in the stands, fellow judokas, people from the technical staff, chef de mission Pieter van den Hoogenband. But the referees are obviously adamant. This was waza-ari, the German turned on her side in time. Grol is going crazy. “Come on San,” he bellows. His deep voice easily fills the entire budokan. Every time he yells, he pulls on his mask so that his words hit the mark. Grol jumps, waves. He was never this exuberant.
When the Netherlands falls 3-2 behind and lightweight Tornike Tsjakadoea enters the tatami to tie the score so that a seventh match is needed to designate a winner, Grol does not dare to look. His fingers clasp the blue boarding in front of him. “Look up, look up”, Grol shouts to his compatriot. The seconds slowly tick away and Grol sinks further and further in his chair. Another golden score follows. After two penalties for both judokas, the next appearance of passivity is deadly. The match lasts almost nine minutes, and Grol can only watch as Chakadoea deflates. It is he who receives the final punishment. Grol is suddenly off judoka. He bows his head, almost too heavy to bear. The team salutes. The Games are over. It ends with a disappointment. Not with a third slice.
broken human
His blue toenails are in orange flip-flops. The same color hangs in deep bags under his eyes. Henk Grol appears as a broken person in the room where the press can question him. And yet, no matter how disappointed he is, he will always appear there and give words to his feelings. Grol seldom renounced in his rich career, although he trotted away when it got too much for him. And even now that the realization is starting to sink in that he has judated his last match, he is still there, flanked by press officer Pascal Bakker, of whom he should have gone through already.
“I would have loved to win this one,” says Grol, a day after he complained that the Nations Cup could be stolen from him. Even team gold would not appeal to him, so deep was his grief for his own failure. “But you do get a bit excited when you can go for bronze. I wanted to do well for the team, for the judokas who now had a chance at a medal that they may never win themselves. And I’m normally not much of a team player. How beautiful this could have been for judo. I didn’t succeed. I’ve done everything I can, but my body can’t take anymore. Not a day longer. I am also relieved. It’s fine this way.”
