NOS Skating•
Gerard Kemkers has rarely spoken about the infamous wrong substitution by skater Sven Kramer during the Vancouver Winter Games in 2010. The skating coach sent his pupil to the wrong lane during the 10 kilometers. Kramer lost the gold and the moment went down in sports history.
“It’s still a scar,” Kemkers says almost fifteen years later in conversation with Robbert Meeder Along the Line on NPO Radio 1. That conversation can now also be listened to here as a podcast.
The former skating coach not only talks about that mistake that continues to haunt him, but also about his years as a youth football player, the ‘mop foot’ that meant the end of his skating career and his period at FC Groningen.
Incident
Kemkers only hears the commentary on ‘the switch’ for the first time in the podcast. He had to swallow a number of times after the moment in which he ruined Kramer’s chances for Olympic gold, says the Groningen native.
Then he called it a day and moved on. “It is a moment that I cannot be proud of as a coach,” says Kemkers. “But I do see it as an incident.”
Reconstruction: Sven Kramer’s fatal substitution in 2010
Kemkers has had a rich career as a skating coach. He guided Kramer and Ireen Wüst, among others, to several Olympic titles and was twice named Coach of the Year.
Fifteen years later, he can still get emotional about his mistake in Vancouver. Kemkers looks back on the race: “At that moment I am 100 percent convinced that I am doing the right thing. In my experience, the other skater is wrong. Until I realize: this lap time is not correct. And then it really sinks in.”
Kramer doesn’t know anything yet on the court and Kemkers continues coaching as if nothing is wrong. “But in your head you are of course already thinking about the conversation you have to have afterwards.”
According to the trainer, Kramer handled the situation very maturely, which meant that Kemkers quickly returned to normal. “I have made the choice to talk very little about it publicly, but I am now stepping away from that for a while.”
After the Sochi Games in 2014, Kramer and Kemkers parted ways.
