‘He was constantly circling the mush’

• Luuk Blijboom

  Editor NOS Sport

Olympic gold, silver and bronze safe in the vault. Six world titles to his name. It were thirteen unforgettable years under his former trainer Jillert Anema. Jorrit Bergsma cannot deny it.

But skating is just like real life. Everything comes to an end.

He himself is already quite used to the yellow-black in which he has been operating since this summer. It will take some getting used to for the outside world this season to see him in the Jumbo-Visma suit, he says.

It may be crazy, it sounds, but it’s better this way. “Maybe Jillert and I have been together for too long and it was just better to part ways.”

It is only the way in which the close collaboration was broken that still stings him seven months later. He had, as he says himself, “perhaps the best season of his career”, with national titles in the five and ten kilometers and a personal best in the longest distance.

A vintage with one dissonance: the Beijing Winter Games. And let athletes be judged on that in an Olympic year.

Beijing 2022 was, Bergsma reluctantly agrees, a considerable setback. Fourth in ten kilometers. Fifth in the 5,000 meters. Ninth on the mass start.

The role of the team’s banner was taken over in China by three-time Olympic champion Irene Schouten. “I noticed I wasn’t a priority anymore.”

What stings Bergsma the most is the fact that he was forced to draw his own conclusions when he asked Anema about their future together.

“I tried to start a conversation with Jillert with the approach: how do we proceed? The response was very reserved. A bit vague, actually. Jillert is always very outspoken. That was suddenly not the case. He turned constantly around the mush and held off the boat.”

Bergsma: “Irene Schouten had already extended her contract before Beijing and received an improved offer after the Games. After Beijing, at least half of the team already had an agreement or offer in their pocket. I didn’t. And that worked, of course.”

Coincidence or not, just when Bergsma didn’t know where he stood, Jac Orie knocked on the door. It did not take much effort for the successful trainer to persuade the offended Bergsma to join his team.

From an unwanted guest he became a coveted passer-by in one fell swoop. “It soon became clear to me that Jumbo-Visma really wanted to incorporate me. Then you go by your gut feeling and choose the party you would like to have.”

However, Bergsma would like to emphasize one thing. “I didn’t have a negative feeling about that split with Jillert. The results have always been great, I had a very nice time with him, which I wouldn’t have missed for anything.”

His move to Orie’s squad is like a journey from one end of the universe to the other for Bergsma. There are no greater polar opposites than Anema and Orie in skating.

Since the age of 23, he has worked with a practitioner who prides himself on relying on experience and feeling. “Wattage meters, lactate measurements, cycling tests. I’ve never worked with that in my life.”

And now, at the age of 36, his fate rests in the hands of a scientist whose training plans are based on measurements. A coach who scours all corners of the internet in search of the latest insights in his field.

“Jac sometimes shows me numbers of measurements and then explains what it means. All very interesting. But after a while it really starts to dizzy me.”

“I have worked in one way for thirteen years. I just knew: if I do this and that in the summer, a good winter will come out. Now I have taken a completely different approach and first I have to wait and see how the new training regime is working out. It’s exciting that I’ve lost my fixes, but it’s also fun at the same time.”

Inline skating, for many years the main part of his summer program, made way for cycling. Where in the past he only did one endurance training per week on his own bike, he now sits on the narrow saddle together with teammates sometimes for four days in a row. “And there is also a lot of driving. I really had to get used to that.”

Also on the ice it is suddenly about group dynamics. “There is a lot of training together. From running in to tempo training.” It does take a little getting used to.

“Sometimes I just like to skate alone for a while. To take my rest, to take time for my technique. If I indicate that, I am fortunate to get that space.”

Bergsma also negotiated privileges in the field of marathons during his transition. If he wants to drive a hundred laps somewhere on a Saturday evening, he will take the starting spot of teammate Arjen van Damme. Sports director Peter de Vries expects no more than five to six games. If not, he thinks there is something seriously wrong with Bergma’s long track program.

The qualifying tournament for the World Cups in Heerenveen will be the litmus test for the veteran. Olympic gold, silver and bronze safe in the vault. Six world titles behind the name. Still, on the last weekend of October, he reports almost with the curiosity of a debutant at the start.

Why? Well, simple. “I’m just really curious what this switch will bring me.”