02 augustus 2021
20:30
The Olympic gold of gymnast Nina Derwael (21) is not only a personal fairy tale, but also the product of a lot of structure and subsidies. 20 years of investing made a small country competitive against the gymnastics superpowers.
Everything starts with talent. Without the exceptional class of Nina Derwael there would be no Olympic gymnastics success. But her gold is also the story of the manufacturability of medals. Without an ambitious gymnastics association and the Flemish government, which pump millions into gymnastics at the top level, no Nina Derwael would be able to show off gold today. In a world sport where competition comes from countries like the United States, Russia and China.
Three moments are identified as crucial on a timeline of 20 years of work on gymnastics gold. In the 1990s, the then manager of the Flemish Gymnastics League Dirk Van Esser realized a merger of the four pillarized gymnastics associations into one large federation. He could concentrate the fragmented resources.
The money of an Olympic champion
With the win of Olympic gold, the criticism of Nina Derwael’s low salary rises again. She receives a grant from Flanders as a top sports student. From 26 million euros of annual resources for top sport, Flanders gives almost 4 million euros to the wages for the athletes to live as a professional or to allowances for studying top athletes.
The professionals receive the wages of a Flemish civil servant according to age and diploma. The starting salary for a university is about 2,000 euros net, a top athlete without a higher diploma can count on about 1,700 euros. Depending on their status as an elite athlete or pledge, students receive 80 percent of a full salary. That is a conscious choice. Flanders does not choose to pamper athletes with high wages, but to invest in the structure of unions and the framework, such as coaches, medical staff and experts. In the Netherlands, athletes are even worse off, because they receive the equivalent of a living wage.
Derwael also has personal sponsors: the bank VDK, the dairy manufacturer de Hollebeekhoeve, the temporary employment and service check company Trixxo, the depilatories company Veet and the gymnastics company Janssen-Fritsen. Her clothing sponsor is Agiva and Audi gives her a car. She is under contract with VDK until the Paris Games, her management office Golazo said. All other contracts must be renegotiated after this year and new candidate sponsors can knock on the door – although a gold medal means butter in the fish. From the BOIC she receives a one-off premium of 50,000 euros for her gold medal.
Van Esser, active at the French global player ABEO in gymnastics equipment and commentator at VRT, was also involved in the first top sports action plan of the Flemish government in the early 2000s. This was initiated by the then boss of the sports federation Bloso Carla Galle. It was only then that a top sports policy was created with choices and funds for sports that would be used.
Top gyms
The top sports schools also date from around 2000. This is a fairly unique Flemish system in which children can combine school with top sport. This is crucial in gymnastics because young children have to train extra hours to ever have a chance at the world top.
Last year 72 children in primary school had top sports status as gymnasts. In secondary school there were 52. Derwael is also a product of that system. These 124 gymnasts form the largest department in top sports schools, after 335 football players.
Crucial was the appointment in 2009 of the French couple Yves Kieffer and Marjorie Heuls as head coaches. They won gold with Emilie Le Pennec at the 2004 Games on the uneven bars. The appointment of Kieffer and Heuls happened during a period when the gymnastics association was without real leadership. They were met by Dominique Verlent, today youth coordinator of the Gymfed Vlaanderen association, and financial manager Sonja Deneyer.
Multidisciplinary team
A third important moment was the arrival in 2013 of Lode Grossen as general manager. He is regarded as the architect of a multidisciplinary team of dozens of coaches, physiotherapists, dieticians, psychologists, physical trainers and other experts around Kieffer and Heuls. Grossen retired last year and is technical director at the swimming federation.
The Gymfed is one of the best Flemish federations. With 128,000 members – 5,000 of whom participate in competitive sports – and 321 clubs, it is the third largest. Gymfed reports for the year 2019 a turnover of 4.2 million euros and a net profit of just under half a million. There is also a piggy bank of 1.8 million.
Gymfed allows talent to flow from the clubs to the regional clubs – in Flanders there are six for girls and four for boys. There is extra training after school with semi-professional coaches.
From the age of 12, the best girls – for boys this is secondary from the second grade – continue to the top sports center in Ghent. There – the hall was also realized with millions of Flemish support – the team around Kieffer and Heuls works with dozens of gymnasts and the Games as the ultimate goal. By the time the gymnasts are 16, they train up to 30 hours a week – double the rhythm starting from 4th grade at 16 hours.
Flemish subsidies
That system runs on a lot of Flemish subsidies. For the athletes who have to score in the short term – say Tokyo – there was 711,240 euros in Flemish subsidy in 2020. For talent detection and development, where the goal is to score at the Paris and Los Angeles Games, there was 992,658 euros. Finally, there is also 68,400 euros for wages, including for Derwael (see box). This makes gymnastics one of the associations that receive the most money. Flanders annually spends 26 million euros on top sport.
In addition to the almost 2 million euros in Flemish support – a special task force with experts decides which sports and athletes subsidy goes to – there is also 188,000 euros via the BeGold project. That is the talent program of the federal BOIC. The Gymfed also invests its own resources in the top sports section of its operation. That would amount to almost as much as what Flanders puts into it.
Complaints about verbal aggression
Van Esser, Galle and then national coach Gerrit Beltman had a goal in the early 2000s: a women’s team at the Games. The first success was with Aagje Vanwalleghem, 23rd in the all-round final in Athens 2004. In Rio 2016 there was a women’s team at the Games for the first time. That was now eighth in the all-round final in Tokyo, there is the gold from Derwael and with Jutta Verkest (15) there is a new top talent. ‘We can continue to score structurally’, says Van Esser. “But there is one condition: Kieffer and Heuls must stay.”
We can continue to score structurally. But there is one condition: Kieffer and Heuls must stay.
Their exit hung by a thread in the spring after complaints of verbal aggression against young gymnasts. Van Esser: ‘Without them Nina wouldn’t even have won a medal.’ After the gold of Derwael, who himself indicates that he wants to continue to Paris, Kieffer and Heuls also seem certain to stay.
Lode Grossen hopes that Flanders will cooperate structurally with Wallonia. ‘There are also 45,000 gymnasts there. We are a small country. We need everyone to keep our place among the world’s best.’
