News28 Oct 2002


'The Kenyans are still five to ten seconds away'

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Simon Vroemen (centre) sprints home in Munich (© Getty Images)

Though Simon Vroemen is now the fastest nonAfrican steeplechaser, the 33-year-old Dutchman naturally remains realistic, “I’m still losing five to ten seconds, to the top Kenyans, who are the best in the world in my event.”

Vroemen produced one of the greatest surprises of the 2002 outdoor season, when on the 19 July at the IAAF Golden League meeting in Monaco, he ran 8:06.91 for the 3000m Steeplechase, dipping under the long standing European record of 8:07.62 set by Frenchman Joseph Mahmoud in 1984.

Yet if the world of Athletics was amazed by this feat, coming as it did from an athlete whose previous best had been just 8:13.45 (2000), Vroemen was equally stunned by his achievement.

“I had expected a time of around 8.10 that night but bettering the nearly eighteen-year-old European record of Joseph Mahmoud was a thing I could only dream of.”

Vroemen, born May 11th 1969 in the old Dutch city of Delft, started his athletics career at the age of eleven.

“I lived then with my parents at Breda. Near our home there was a forest where the members of the Achilles club trained. I was interested in what they were doing and so became a member of the club. I tried every event but it soon became clear that I was a runner. I was always the best at 1000 metres.”

Vroemen is the youngest of twins. “My 40 minutes older brother Casper is also a steeplechaser but I’m the best of the family.”

He was already 25 years-old by the time he tried his first adventure with this strange track discipline in which the runner passes over 28 barriers and 7 water-jumps during the course of the race.

“In that (first) race I ran a reasonable time but my technique was horrible. I decided to concentrate on the steeplechase but it was hard work. I often could not train as my knees were swollen due to hard knocks obtained from the barriers.”

“With increasing advice from my trainer Ronald Klomp, my technique rapidly improved and now, due to the good hurdling technique that I have developed, I can gain one to two metres per barrier on some of the other runners”

“Another problem was my stamina. That improved when I started two years ago training under Bram Wassenaar, who is also coach to (2001) European Cross Country silver medallist Kamiel Maase (who set 13:13.06 and 27:26.29 national records at 5000m and 10,000m in 2002).”

Wassenaar, a former Dutch record holder at 800m and 1500m, taught Vroemen the valuable balance between rest and training.

Vroemen is an experienced international runner having completed in three World Championships (1997, 1999 and 2001) and an Olympics. The 2000 Sydney Games, where - after winning his heat - he finished 12th in the final, were his best major championships prior to this summer.

In Sydney, he ran against Norwegian Jim Svenoy, who is now living in The Netherlands, and recently became a member of Wassenaar’s training group too.

“It is a pleasure to train with Jim Svenoy. Where do you have two Olympic finalists in one group?”

Simon Vroemen has a PhD in Biochemics (from the Universities of Wageningen, Los Angeles and Utrecht), and works for Shell as a petroleum engineer, making worldwide production forecasts for gas and oil fields.

Despite this distraction, the new European record holder thinks he can still better his personal best time.

“The most important thing is that next year I run four or five times under 8.15. You have to have times like that in your legs. Two years ago, I ran 8.13 twice in four days. Last year, I was hampered by a tropical stomach virus and so I could not bring the sort of performance I wanted to the track.”

The year 2002, which has turned out to be so successful on the track, did not start out so well on a personal level, as the long time relationship with his girlfriend fell into difficulty.  “I was devastated as our relation came to an end. But out of this negative experience there came a lot of positive things. One can say that this crisis was a source of energy.”

After his European record, Vroemen was the hot favourite for the European Championships title in Munich. However, he brought home ’only’ a silver medal.

“Although it was a disappointment for a lot of people, I can live with it. On the last hurdle I came nearly to a stand still. I was completely worn out. Everything went black around me. I felt the Spaniard Martin come alongside me. I went with him but another Spaniard, Jimenez, passed me. It was a disappointment but nobody except myself could ever describe the experience of how my legs felt at that moment.”

Simon Vroemen hopes to race for another two years and to close his career at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. “In 2005, I will run the Rotterdam Marathon just for fun!”

Wim van Hemert for the IAAF

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