Every year, our lovely club Don Quichote manages to send two teams to the GNSK, the Great Dutch Student Championships. During this tournament, different student cities compete in various sport, to determine which student city is the most sportive of the Netherlands. One of the sports is fencing, on foil and epee in equipe. The chosen members started training long ago, in order to come back with the best possible results. With the help of other club members they prepared for the GNSK and fenced in a very nice pro-active manner. Both the foil and epee teams consisted of 4 members, accompanied by multiple trainers.
The fencing hall for the GNSK (© Nederlands Schermnieuws)
Every year it’s very exciting to walk up the camp site, where we sleep in tents for a few nights. In between all other sporters of various universities, we set up our tents, while people with lesser lung capacity stood in line with their airbeds, waiting for the electric pump. When all practicalities were arranged, it was time for the next spectacle: the opening of the GNSK. While enjoying music and a small amount of ‘lemonade’, everyone had a good time at the party. But it was clear everyone was ready to do some actual sports the day after.
Breakfast was early. Under strict supervision our bodies were filled to capacity with bread and fruit, making sure our energy would stay high during the day. The ambiance in the fencing hall was very friendly and all different teams could not be more kind. But that’s all well next to the pistes.. Once the masks are on, competition begins and we all want only one thing: stabbing our opponent. Both teams did very well on this first day. It was a bit sad that one of our foil team members got injured, as she decided to do a split. It must be noted, however, that the split was very well performed. After a long day (in total we had to be ready to fence for 8 hours), we strolled back to our camping site to get some well-deserved rest. Of course this was combined with some snacks and a fair amount of ‘spiritual drinks’. After our naps, yes we did a nap with the whole team, we continued with dinner and, even better, the ultimate party. As if no one was tired yet, we danced till late in the morning.
Unfortunately the saying ‘you made your bed and now you have to lie in it’ was not correct as we could not lie in it very long, but instead went to fence again early. On the final day we again managed to fenced well and delivered a nice achievement. The foil team managed, despite the injury, to reach 5th place, and the epee team came 2nd. Overall, Nijmegen finished at 3rd place in fencing. While enjoying some good snacks, we evaluated our fencing but eventually all wanted to go home. It’s been a long, tiring weekend, but every year it turns out to be an unforgettable experience. Next time, Don Quichote will again be represented at the GNSK, of course hoping to improve our results. But for that, we will need a bit more training and competition experience.
GNSK team Nijmegen with: standing from left to right Julian, Amber, Béla, Ashley, Alexander, Ellen and Jan; sitting from left to right Pieter, Laurens and René (© Nederlands Schermnieuws)
