Words and photo by Merijn Soeters
The Dutch women's head coach, Josy Verdonkschot, is busily fine tuning his medal factory ahead of the 2020 Olympics. He and his athletes spent most of February in Spain, both high up on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada and on the Guadalquivir River in the Sevillian sunshine. There, in relative seclusion, he raced his prime rowers to form a quad that should take home Olympic gold in Tokyo after a silver in Rio, gold at the world championships in Sarasota in 2017, and bronze at the world championships in Plovdiv last year. The rowers not picked from the bunch went on to fight for spots in either the four or the eight. One crew was not tested: Roos de Jong and Lisa Scheenaard will be the double this season, if only to qualify the boat for Tokyo at the world champs in Linz this summer. There’s always a chance the quad does not roll off the assembly line on time. Then selection for the best double will start over