A country of 17 million people, the Netherlands has started to challenge much more populous powers in recent years and has seen increasing success at the Olympic Games.
In Tokyo-2020, the Dutch occupied seventh position for the first time in the medal table of a summer edition and were on the podium 36 times, practically double the numbers obtained in the three previous events (16, 20 and 19).
In the Winter Olympics, the jump was triple: from 8 medals in 2010 to 24 in 2014. After a slight drop to 20 podiums in 2018 —which did not remove it from the top 5 of the table—, Holland wants to grow again in Beijing- 2022 and already sum 15 achievements. The current edition of the Games ends next Sunday (20).
The performance based on specialization and the high rate of use of sporting talents draws the attention of the whole world, and the COB (Brazilian Olympic Committee) is one of the national entities that has closely observed the work of European rivals.
“It’s a country we’ve been targeting for some time and we’ve used it as an example of success, given the conditions they have. A very small country, but with great use of human resources”, says COB’s sports director, Jorge Bichara.
The director explains that the Dutch model began to be studied by Brazilians before London-2012. At that time, a relationship of partnership and exchange of information was created between the Olympic committees of the two countries. They are part of a group of six members (Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Belgium are the others) who regularly share experiences.
This approach led the Dutch Olympic Committee’s performance research and innovation manager, Kamiel Maase, to be one of the invited speakers for the second edition of the Brazilian Olympic Congress. The event, organized by COB, will take place in Salvador on March 19 and 20.
But after all, what makes the work carried out by Holland an example to be followed?
It is important to emphasize that the country’s Olympic committee is dedicated only to the elite of high-performance sports and that its success in the Games also depends on a series of actions in different spheres.
They start with the creation of an accessible and quality infrastructure for the practice of sports, go through the mechanisms of talent detection and development until reaching the final adjustments to enhance performance.
Located at the end of this chain, the committee created six areas of leadership about five years ago: sports medicine; behavior; technology; strength and conditioning; nutrition; research and innovation.
“Our focus is mainly on the high level. If an athlete is in the top 8, we try to bring him within reach of the medal. We cannot spend all our money and our expertise on thousands of athletes”, explains Maase.
In addition to the trump cards, this policy generates super-specialized development in some modalities. At the Summer Games, swimming and cycling accounted for almost 40% of the 322 medals won throughout history. Speed ​​skating dominates absolute among winter sports, with 131 medals out of 145 (90%).
“Of course, there is an excellent group of talented and well-trained athletes who do well and reach sixth, seventh or eighth position. These are great results, but in the Olympic Games this is worth zero points. So we have a policy that is heavily focused on the cherry. of our cake”, completes the manager.
After the Beijing-2008 Games, the Dutch committee made a significant cut in the programs encouraged by its funds and began to prioritize a smaller number of actions. For Masse, this is the main reason for the performance improvement from that edition until the Tokyo Olympics.
Bichara points out that the COB already has a division of areas similar to that of the Europeans, but sees important differences in the way public funds are spent. “They are a little more radical in terms of distribution. There, modalities without medal chances do not have this type of resource”, he says.
In Brazil, the main source of funding for Olympic sport is the transfer of federal lotteries, guaranteed by law. In the case of the COB, the values ​​are distributed among 34 Olympic confederations based on a series of criteria that combine sports performance and management quality.
“We have a system that I think is more suited to the Brazilian socioeconomic model and to the valorization of sport: part of the lottery resources is distributed to all affiliates and another part is invested in the main athletes, or in the modalities that have the most chances”, argues the leader.
Not everything is explained by the decisions made at the top of the pyramid. The history of public policies that value the practice of sports in the population is also decisive for the good results in the Netherlands.
“I must highlight the excellent infrastructure we have in the Netherlands,” says Maase. “In every small town, village, you can play football, tennis or field hockey. Our country is small and gives opportunities for all young people to play sports.”
Another central point is the investment in science and technology made by the entities. The country’s skating federation, for example, turned to mathematicians at the University of Groningen a decade ago to help establish a model for selecting its award-winning speed skaters. The algorithm indicates which events and athletes have the highest chances of winning in the main events.
Maase recognizes that it is difficult to assign the weight of every detail to the results seen in recent Games.
“A lot has changed. I can’t say that, in the face of so many changes, nutrition has a 2% influence. That’s impossible. What we always say is that our goal is to really intervene based on evidence”, he says.
Olympic Congress takes place in March in Bahia
The Brazilian Olympic Congress will have its second edition in Salvador, on March 19 and 20. There will be lectures, exhibitions and discussions about the future of the sport. Among the speakers will be Kamiel Maase, American writer and marketing specialist Jonah Berger, German futurist Gerd Leonhard and three-time Olympic volleyball coach José Roberto Guimarães. Tickets and information on health protocols for participating in the event are available at https://congresso.cob.org.br/inscricao.
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