The Winner in 1985 and 1986: Evert van Benthem
Evert van Benthem was born in 1959. His father had a farm in a small village, Ens, in the north-east of the Netherlands. Evert took over the passion of his father to start his own farm which he did in 1983. Before that, he went of course, like all Dutch kids, to school till he was at least 15 years old. In that time he was active in athletics. When he visited once with a friend a skating track he detected immediately that this was more a sport for him than athletics. He became a member of a skating club and later was invited to become a member of the junior selection of Friesland. He liked that time a lot but when he was senior he was not good enough to become member of the national selection for long track skating. That meant that he could participate in only very few races each year. Therefore he chose for marathon skating. There is a lot of competition in this branch of skating. He had to train a lot in order to be allowed to participate in the marathons of the best skaters. In fact it took him quite some time to reach the A selection. This happened just two years before he won for the first time the “Elfstedentocht”. In the year 1983 he and his wife had also bought a farm to start a cattle farm with 40 cows. In 1984 he had little time for the training and participating in the weekly races because of his farm related work. In 1985 he participated more.
It will be clear that his background with respect to skating was very different from the one of Auke Adema. The latter only had very few opportunities to train on ice, let alone that he had a qualified trainer. Evert van Benthem had the opportunity to train every week as much as he wanted under supervision of a qualified trainer of the Frisian selection.
Let me say something more about this important aspect. Coen de Koning was the last Dutch person who became world champion long track skating over 500, 1500, 5000, and 10.000m. With the limited training possibilities inThe Netherlands on natural ice, the Norwegians were for years the champions. Till Henk van de Grift went to Norway in the beginning of the winter of 1960 and 1961 to prepare there a skating track for himself on a lake and to train there for the World championships. His effort had success, he became in 1961 world champion. Nevertheless it is surprising to see that he skated very different from the way people skate nowadays. In fact he skated more in the style of Auke Adema.
It will be clear that his background with respect to skating was very different from the one of Auke Adema. The latter only had very few opportunities to train on ice, let alone that he had a qualified trainer. Evert van Benthem had the opportunity to train every week as much as he wanted under supervision of a qualified trainer of the Frisian selection.
Let me say something more about this important aspect. Coen de Koning was the last Dutch person who became world champion long track skating over 500, 1500, 5000, and 10.000m. With the limited training possibilities inThe Netherlands on natural ice, the Norwegians were for years the champions. Till Henk van de Grift went to Norway in the beginning of the winter of 1960 and 1961 to prepare there a skating track for himself on a lake and to train there for the World championships. His effort had success, he became in 1961 world champion. Nevertheless it is surprising to see that he skated very different from the way people skate nowadays. In fact he skated more in the style of Auke Adema.
At that time it was clear to the skating officials in the Netherlands that trainings facilities had to be created to win titles again. This was the beginning of the construction of skating rinks of 400 meters with artificial ice. The fist was built in 1961 in Amsterdam, in 1962 followed one in Deventer and in several other cities. In 1985 was the first indoor 400m track created in Berlin and in 1986 followed the famous skating stadium (Thialf) of Hereveen. Now there are 24 ice tracks with artificial ice where one can daily skate from October till March in the Netherlands. This development went together with scientific studies of the skating technique and the training systems, the skating clothes and the equipment and the skates. It also led to courses for trainers and skating classes for the public. All these developments have had of course influence on the success of Dutch skaters. There followed a very successful period in the Dutch skating, especially in long track skating. But the other countries were also not standing still. The winning times in the longest distance the 10.000m went down very rapidly. In the graphic, one can see how the time for this race has been reduced through time from 1912 till 1985.
This graph shows that the winning time over 10.000m went down from more than 17.01 minutes in 1940 to 14.21 minutes in 1984. That is an increase in speed from 35.2 km/hour to 42.2km/hour. At this moment the speed of the world record is even 48km/hour.
This brief presentation of the development in skating in the Netherlands and the world in general will make it clear that Evert van Benthem developed his skills in a very different skating climate than Auke Adema. His skating condition was much better, the skating facilities were much better, his material was better and his style of skating was also very different. All this suggests that the time needed for the “elfstedentocht” after 40 years of development in long track skating should be much less than the time Auke Adema needed. And that happened indeed. Evert van Benthem won in 6.46 hours. Adema needed respectively 11.30 and 9.19 hours. The ice and weather conditions in the second tour of Adema and the tour of Van Benthem were rather comparable. This means that under the same circumstances Van Benthem was more than 2 hours faster than Adema. This has mainly to do with the factors I mentioned above. The most important factors, according to me, were that the style of skating is very different and that the skaters are much better trained but besides that the material they used and the clothes were much better. You can see it for yourself in the video below about the “elfstedentocht” of 1985.
This brief presentation of the development in skating in the Netherlands and the world in general will make it clear that Evert van Benthem developed his skills in a very different skating climate than Auke Adema. His skating condition was much better, the skating facilities were much better, his material was better and his style of skating was also very different. All this suggests that the time needed for the “elfstedentocht” after 40 years of development in long track skating should be much less than the time Auke Adema needed. And that happened indeed. Evert van Benthem won in 6.46 hours. Adema needed respectively 11.30 and 9.19 hours. The ice and weather conditions in the second tour of Adema and the tour of Van Benthem were rather comparable. This means that under the same circumstances Van Benthem was more than 2 hours faster than Adema. This has mainly to do with the factors I mentioned above. The most important factors, according to me, were that the style of skating is very different and that the skaters are much better trained but besides that the material they used and the clothes were much better. You can see it for yourself in the video below about the “elfstedentocht” of 1985.
You have seen in this video that Evert van Benthem was the surprising winner in the sprint of this “Elfstedentocht”. The next year the tour took place again and this time he won convincingly finishing alone. These two victories made him one of the most famous persons in the Netherlands.
He was so famous that many people came to look at his farm and his cheese shop. Although he probably also had a lot of financial benefits of this interest in him, he nevertheless decided in 1999 that he could not do what he wanted in The Netherlands. This was not only because of the visitors but also because of the Dutch policy with respect to farming. Both reason brought him to the decision to emmigrate to Canada where he started again a farm with more possibilities for him and his family. Asked whether he missed the Netherlands he said: “no, except for the skating”. Therefore he organizes regularly skating tours on a lake close to where he lives.