Steffie van der Peet wins two gold medals at the Euro Championships track cycling. Photo NOS-interview Biologie student Steffie van der Peet won a gold medal on Sunday evening during the Euro Championships track cycling in the Keirin discipline. The medal is added to the gold she achieved in the team sprint on Wednesday evening.
Beaming, dressed in her blue-and-white Euro Championship jersey and a gold medal around her neck, Steffie van der Peet talks with the NOS. ‘This is so cool! It still feels a little like something that has simply happened to me, but it didn’t, of course. In the finals, everything I have worked so hard for this past year fell into place. I tapped into my own power: self-confidence and courage.’
The biology student goes on to discuss the trajectory she followed to become a tactical athlete. ‘I want to remain the tactical Steffie, continue to navigate between the wheels of my competitors even if I know that may result in slimmer chances of winning. At the same time, I want to ride to win, and I know I most trust in my own strength. A psychologist helped me view my races from a different perspective: someone may theoretically be faster, but that does not mean he will necessarily win.’
Mental edge
On Sunday evening during the Keirin, in which six finalists gather speed behind a motorcycle after which they sprint for some three rounds, all the pieces fell into place. Van de Peet overtook her British adversary, who had led the entire race just before the finish line.
But, it took everything she had, she said. ‘I felt myself slow down in the last half lap. That is a terrible feeling when you just feel it slip through your fingers. But my jump (a move that cyclists use to push their bike forward at the end of a sprint, red.) at the end was sufficient.’
On Wednesday’s first day of the championships, Van der Peet and two teammates won the gold medal in the Team sprint. ‘That is a mental edge that you carry with you in the other parts of the championships’, Van der Peet commented afterwards.
In a slightly different composition, the Dutch women’s team sprinters won the bronze medal in the track cycling Euro Championships in Apeldoorn. Resource interviewed Steffie van der Peet on combining elite sports with studying.
