Students from TU/e and Fontys Eindhoven kicked, threw and hit as hard or as tactically as they could at various locations in Amsterdam during the Great Dutch Student Championship (Groot Nederlands Studenten Kampioenschap). They secured podium places for e-sportsmen (gold), women footballers, fencers with épées, squash players, tennis players, women’s water polo players and men’s basketball players (all bronze). The Eindhoven women’s football team even won gold, thus prolonging their title.

Football stars

Tjeerd Thomassen, club manager at the Eindhoven Student Sports Center, was present at the GNSK on Saturday. He attended sports including fencing, water polo and cycling. Due to the Hajraa outdoor tournament Eindhoven did not compete in men’s football and volleyball, which was a drawback for the final ranking. “The organization of the GNSK decided on a date which was inopportune for us”, says Thomassen. “Still, we performed alright. The best performance was presented by the women’s football team with an occasional team of indoor and outdoor football players.”

Football player Lobke van Mourik was on that team. She thinks they also owe their victory to trainer Amado Garza Salas. “The Mexican gave the golden tip by telling Izy Janssens to play the ball deep. Our right-winger, Laura Vrenken, picked up that pass and scored the winning goal.” In the photo you see a snapshot from the semifinal against Rotterdam.

e-sports

Five sports were selected by the Amsterdam organization, in addition to the standard sports. These were boxing, gymnastics, water polo, cycling and e-sports. For that last-mentioned sport this year was the second occasion at the GNSK. The first time was in 2017, when Eindhoven organized the event. Last year Wageningen decided not to include e-sports in the program. TU/e student Jordy van Graven was this year’s coach of the e-sports team. “We, as members of ESEV Zephyr, competed in two games: League of Legends and Super Smash Brothers. In both we ended second, but as a result we won first prize. Unfortunately we were not given a trophy. It would have been fun to suspend it in the Student Sports Center, as we do not have our a base of our own.”

Zephyr trains in lecture halls in MetaForum. The weekly practices have borne fruit. “As we know each other so well the communication is good and we are a tight team. That partly accounts for our wins. And remember we have top player Christopher Reenis (Smash) and coach Rens van Kalken (League) on our team.” During the GNSK the e-sportsmen met up with other sportsmen, especially the boxers, with whom they shared a building. Jordy: “I managed to make it perfectly clear to them why e-sports should be regarded as a genuine sport, because we, too, want to beat our adversaries step-by-step, by dealing them a variety of blows. Just like a boxer in the ring would do.”