After finishing a disappointing 14th in the 5,000-meter speedskating race at the 2018 Olympics, Nils van der Poel did not skate again for almost two years. He barely even trained, in fact. Instead, he joined the Swedish army and became an ultramarathon runner, among other pursuits.
And then he came back. Van der Poel won the 5,000-meter race Sunday night in 6 minutes 8.84 seconds, an Olympic record. His gold medal-winning performance came a year after he set two world records, and he is a heavy favorite to win gold in the 10,000 meters on Friday.
After his victory, van der Poel spoke at length about his unusual training plan and where he finds the motivation needed to be an elite athlete.
How are you setting world records while also not living, eating, breathing speedskating?
When you are a professional athlete in a sport that sucks as much as speedskating sucks, you’ve got to find a way to make it suck a little less. And whatever you can get inspired by, you need to find that.
Perhaps the guy who trains the most wins. Perhaps it’s like that. It is pretty likely. So what do you have to bribe yourself with to train more than the others? If you can find the answer to that, perhaps you can win the Olympics.
What is the answer for you?
So I did like 20 ultras. One thousand sky dives. I served in the army for a year. I did a lot of parties. I went snowboarding a lot. I did a lot of ski mountaineering. I biked the entire Sweden.
All since 2018?
Not all of it, but most of it.
So it was like, I had to make it adventurous, because I knew there would come a time when it wouldn’t be adventurous no more, when I would lock myself up in Inzell* for two months just going for it. But I knew if I wanted to endure that, I had to, like, build up a mountain of motivation because I’m going to need that motivation one day.
*Inzell is a German town where many speedskaters train.
You can’t do speedskating day after day?
I don’t think so, no. No. It is too monotonous to me.
I love it. I really love this sport. More than most things. But if you’re going to train as much as it’s needed, you’ve got to, you’ve got to love it, man. And if you want to keep loving it, I mean, you’ve got to work for it. It is like a relationship. It doesn’t come to you. It doesn’t become perfect. You’ve got to work for it.
I think the mistake I made when I was younger was that I didn’t work for my motivation. I expected my motivation to be there. It’s not. It’s not going to be there. You’ve got to chase it. A lot harder than you chase your opponents. You’ve got to chase your motivation.
Because what if you wake up and you want to train? What if that happens every day? Perhaps you will be the one who trains the most.
Is this your last season?
I’ve been trying to quit two times and I haven’t succeeded. I don’t think I’ll succeed this time either. Maybe.
