Dutch Fans Embrace World’s Speedskaters

This is the must-see landmark in Turin, so Beorn Nijenhuis is here to see it. This is the Mole Antonelliana, the tower that reaches 550 feet into the sky, with an elevator that whisks you to the top in 59 seconds.

Nijenhuis strolls the observation deck alone, enjoying the panoramic views. In Italy, no one recognizes him.

In the Netherlands, his homeland, he is a famous athlete. He is a speedskater.

The Olympics ended Sunday. In America, the Winter Olympians will fade into oblivion for the next four years. But the speedskaters of the world will compete again in a few weeks, in the Netherlands.

“If you think this is loud,” Nijenhuis said of the crowds at Oval Lingotto, “you should come to Heerenveen for the World Cup.”

The crowds were big here, and loud. The crowds will be bigger there.

The Dutch fans will cheer for Nijenhuis, 21, a promising skater who finished 12th at 1,000 meters, the race in which sniping Americans Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick finished first and second, respectively. They will cheer for Davis and Hedrick too.

“They feel like they own all speedskaters,” Nijenhuis said. “They own American speedskaters.”

Just ask Saskia Hoogenboom, a Dutch fan.

“I know Chad,” she said. “I think Chad is a little bit arrogant. I’m sorry. He has a lovely father. I’ve drunk whiskey with him.”

More people know Davis and Hedrick in the Netherlands than in the United States, Nijenhuis said, and why not?

This is more than a Dutch sport. This is Dutch history. Huge chunks of the country lie below sea level, linked by canals that often freeze in the winter, so kids learn to skate as easily as they learn to walk. The Netherlands won nine medals in Turin, all in speedskating.

Hedrick, who grew up as an inline roller skater, also played football, baseball, hockey and tennis before turning to speedskating. The glory and the money are not in skating, at least not in America.

Nijenhuis has yet to win an Olympic medal, but he has no need for a day job. The good skaters can earn $100,000 a year, he said, and the best can make $1 million.

He can see himself, larger than life, all around his homeland. His patron, a transportation insurance company called TVM, sponsors a speedskating team and plasters the faces of its racers on its trucks.

It’s good business, same as Toyota sponsoring the Angels or Budweiser buying commercials on Super Bowl broadcasts. You go where your customers are.

And the Dutch fans were here, en masse, in orange. They shook orange clappers. They dressed as if Caltrans had outfitted them. They cheered for their own, and for the rest of the world too.

They even threw a party for the rest of the world. At Holland House, a massive party tent set up at the University of Turin, the Netherlands welcomed one and all to skate, free, on an indoor rink, and to eat, drink and be merry. Bands played every night, and athletes from other sports and other countries stopped by to dance, drink beer and take a turn at tending bar.

There was no hooliganism, just a good time for all. Dutch speedskating fans make sure they have fun, and they make sure you have fun. “If the world was a classroom, they would be like the class clowns,” Nijenhuis said. “They don’t like to be too serious. They’re really good fun.

“They’re drunks, but they’re the friendliest drunks in the world.”