- Intro
- 18/08/2020
Intro 2020 | Sports and games easily corona-proof
An egg race on a sheet two by two meters. A thirty-meter sprint with your opponent one meter fifty away and a soap tackle track that disinfects you in one fell swoop. Walking onto the field outside Aurora, you are greeted by a scene that seems almost like any normal Intro: every aspect of group sports and games is here and that means there’s also plenty of opportunity to get to know the associations behind the fun. With undiminished enthusiasm, the Intro kids are taking part.
On the edge of the field we find Physics Dispuut (club) Hawking of study association J. D. van der Waals with a unicycle, a box of ping-pong balls and a number of larger balls. My curiosity is peaked. What is all this? Niels Peters of the dispuut is happy to share a little piece of history. “The founders were once asked to keep an eye on a tent on the Koeveld. ‘We can do that,’ they thought, ‘but we’ll need some snacks and drinks.’ So one member cycled home to pick up snacks, drinks and a deep-fat fryer full of oil. He made it a good distance, but not unfortunately the whole way and he fell off, with the pan. This is the event we are recalling. The bike just about does the job, the box of ping-pong balls is the deep fryer and the other balls are for the opponents to throw to make it more difficult. We used to do this with water, but corona has put paid to that. But this works too." And, of course, a short demonstration is given:
At athletics association Asterix everyone is welcome to compete for the fastest time in the thirty-meter sprint. And a voucher for their regular haunt, the bar Kix. If the ‘kids’ ask nicely, they can also try running against Intro Committee member Lorens Niehof, although he readily admits the thirty meters is not his specialism. “As well as the sprint, we are also challenging the Intro kids to try pole vaulting,” he says, pointing to a pole that is waiting patiently for the first limber men and women to give it a go.
Soaping up and rinsing off
If you need to cool off, you can slide on over (pun intended) to the soap tackle track laid on by The Elephants. The rugby association is at the campus market with a clear message: rugby is not only for big, broad-shouldered lads. Louise de Laat proudly displays the sign that reinforces this message, as does a demonstration on the floor:
The team present to supervise the Intro kids hopes it will be popular and the ‘kids’ will sign up en masse for a course for puppies (women) or young hounds (men). One important tip is given in advance: “If you grab them by the knees and ankles, it always brings them down!”
A cartwheel with the canoe
Canoe association Okawa has installed its own swimming pool on the field so that it can impress the Intro kids with cool tricks in the wild-water freestyle category. “In principle, you can do everything with this canoe that you can do with a skateboard,” says Okawa’s Ron de Crom. “A salto, corkscrew, cartwheels.” Unfortunately, the Intro kids can’t get into the pool themselves (corona measure) but don’t worry, on Thursday and Friday of this week there will be canoe workshops on the River Dommel. During the campus market at any rate, De Crom demonstrates some tricks that the ‘kids’ can also learn at the association. The workshops on the Dommel take in some fish ladders and rapids. “A lot of people think they can do all that no problem because they once did a bit of canoeing on vacation, but in practice it often proves more difficult than expected.”
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