Rijen, March 2, 2008 - Women 1991-1992

The quotation for Margriet Berkhout (600) to take this title, is at least 100 to 1. She is running in the middle of the field of 21 contestants, but probably not for long. This is only 100 metres after the start. In 2007, Berkhout ran 4.22 over 1500, and 9.38 over 3000 metres, and took a 6th place at the yet unofficial U18 European championships in Belgrade. None of her opponents has come anywhere near to her. Jessie Fairley of Nimwegen Track Club, the only one that could give her a hard time in this race, has virtually given up on distance running, so we expect Berkhout to be on het own for most of this race.

Berkhout has taken off already after 500 metres, a little more than 10% of the race, and fulfilled the "prophecies" quickly.

Lisa Driessen (620) and Marrijtje Molenhuis (621) trail Oosterloo by four seconds.

Esther Arts (615), Marit Tegelaar (602), and Andrea Lenders (614) follow the leader at sixteen seconds.

Elke Wouters (618) and unattached East African Bethlehem Teklemedin (616) are twenty seconds behind Berkhout.

After one third of the race, Berkhout is about to pass the fence between the open field and the forests of Rijen.

Arts has caught up with Driessen and Molenhuis, and wants to speed it up a little, since this group has already lost 22 seconds to Berkhout.

Tegelaar and Ten Kampe pass the gate some 32 seconds after Berkhout. Pape has a hard time staying with them.

This group, headed by Aniek Aper (619), and Lisanne Bruijsten (608) is about 42 seconds behind Berkhout.

Jitske van Heeswijk of Heythuysen Track Club, the club also of Frans Heffels, director of the EAA cross country in Tilburg, and one of the speakers of the Dutch nationals.

This is Sonja Bemelmans. The man behind her with the yellow microphone is Heffels.

On our way home we spot Berkhout in the early stage of her final loop of 1800 metres. She has covered two thirds of the 4500 metres of her race.

Klamer is 35 seconds behind now, so her only concern is to hold on to the silver.

The battle for silver is not done yet, for Oosterloo trails Klamer by only six seconds.

Berkhout has reached the dirts track of Spiridon Track Club for the last time, and is about to collect her fourth national title in 12½ months.

Berkhout is the only female junior in the Netherlands Maureen Koster can still learn a lot from, and she knows it. The gap between the two is likely to grow smaller, once and for all because Berkhout is attending medical school from August 2008. Medical school in the Netherlands is known to be very diffcicult to combine with distance running at the highest level. The junior outdoor nationals in Groningen are planned in the last weekend of May this year 2008. That may cause some problems too, since that is at the end of the period of final exams, and at the beginning of the almost obligatory graduation festivities.

Klamer looks a little bit upset with her silver medal. She certainly knew that she had very little chance to beat Berkhout, but she had probably expected the gap with Bekrhout would turn out a lot less than 44 seconds.

Oosterloo appears to be content with her bronze medal at exactly one minute from Berkhout.

Arts has conviningly taken the fourth place, but she is certainly not very content. Tegelaar, Driessen, and Molenhuis are not in sight yet, but taking place number four is often the worst thing that can happen to you.

Tegelaar crosses the line in fifth position, but she looks even more disappointed than Klamer and Arts.

Driessen comes in sixth. We surely have pictured her happier with her performance in the past.

Even Molenhuis appears not very pleased with her seventh spot. We wonder why, for until now, she was relatively unknown outside the northeast of the country. She took silver in the nationals over 1500 metres for athletes of 1989-1990 in Groningen five weeks ago, and that may have raised some expectations for the cross country nationals. But given, for instance, the way she is built, it is likely that she will redeem even greater expectations in the future.

Lenders shows some satisfaction, for she has just beaten Ten Kampe for rank eight.

		Women 89-90, 4500 m
1	600	Margriet Berkhout	1990	NOVA	17.44
2	610	Rachel Klamer	1990	LAAC Twente	18.28
3	612	Jessica Oosterloo	1990	AAC'61	18.44
4	615	Esther Arts	1989	Venray Regio	19.00
5	602	Marit Tegelaar	1990	PAC	19.25
6	620	Lisa Driessen	1990	Olympus'70	19.34
7	621	Marrijtje Molenhuis	1990	AAC'61	19.43
8	614	An Lenders	1990	Venray Regio	20.01
9	605	Kimba ten Kampe	1989	Daventria	20.03
10	617	Suzanne Verwegen	1990	Oss'78	20.27
11	619	Aniek Aper	1989	RK HAV	20.40
12	608	Lisanne Bruijsten	1990	Seven Hills Running	20.54
13	623	Jitske van Heeswijk	1989	AV Heythuysen	21.01
14	618	Elke Wouters	1990	Loopteam Ed Sligcher	21.07
15	607	Robi van Leersum	1990	Rotterdam Atletiek	21.08
16	611	Hilde Pape	1989	SISU	21.14
17	603	Maaike Zuiderwijk	1989	Lycurgus	21.16
18	616	Bethlehem Teklemedhin [unatt]	1989	KAV Holland	21.36
19	624	Sonja Bemelmans	1990	Nijmegen Atletiek	22.00
20	622	Tiny Poortinga	1990	Impala	23.08
21	604	Marcella Roks	1990	THOR	23.29