The medals before the burglary. Photo Frederieke Slager Frederieke Slager’s room was broken into on Wednesday 20 April. The Bachelor’s student of Biotechnology (20) lives in a student house in Duivendaal.
‘When I came back to my room after a training session, I saw that my bed had been completely messed up. The thief left my laptop, but took all my medals. The drawing pins they were pinned to the wall with were all over the floor. Nobody had seen anything.’
Slager earned the medals in the course of her career as a synchronised swimmer. ‘I did that for ten years, the last five of which at a high level. I stopped when I went to university, but the medals were hanging on the wall like trophies: the rewards of all those hours of hard work in the water. Whenever I was going through a bad patch or under stress, I would look at them and think: fight on, and you’ll be fine.’
Gold
The medals are not worth much money. ‘They are not Olympic medals, so if you want to melt them down, it will take more effort than it’s worth. But to me they do have a lot of emotional value. The first and last medals I won, for example, and the fact that we finally won that gold plaque in my last year on the team after getting silver several times. That golden plaque is the one I most want back as it stands for achieving the goal I was aiming at as a swimmer. It is also the most beautiful medal.’
Photo Frederieke Slager
In the bushes
After a tip on Facebook, Slager found four of her medals near De Junushoff theatre, in the bushes near the water. ‘I hope to get more tips. Really, I would like to keep on searching, but I have exams next week, so in terms of timing that’s not going to be possible. A friend of mine might take a metal detector with her soon, and then we can search the park more thoroughly to see if we can find anything.’ Slager has reported the burglary to the police.
Seen anything suspicious, or maybe even medals? Send an email to frederieke.slager@wur.nl
