6 ms·

This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch, but due to global warming it hasn't been held in 24 years. The previous longest interval was 22 y

This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch, but due to global warming it hasn't been held in 24 years. The previous longest interval was 22 years, so some people are starting to doubt whether it will ever happen again. Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority.

Tijdreiziger 6y ago
> This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch Uh, I'm not too familiar with the Superbowl, but the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship.
- armada651 6y ago
  > 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' It's not hard to compete for that title when your competition hasn't had a televised event in 24 years...
  - Tijdreiziger 6y ago
    More generally, the national ice skating championships are also nowhere near as popular as the national football championship (Eredivisie).
    - armada651 6y ago
      Not every sporting event that uses a football is the same, neither is every sporting event that uses ice skates.
      - ramblerman 6y ago
        Ur digging in your heels pretty hard, but most dutch are disagreeing with you (myself included). It's just not a very fitting analogy.
        armada651 6y ago
        Sorry if it seems I'm digging in my heels on the "equivalent" part, I should've worded that differently. If you were trying to find an equivalent Dutch sporting event to the Superbowl it would be the Eredivisie. But the point of the analogy was not to make a perfect equivalence to the Elfstedentocht, that would be impossible. The point was to convey to an American audience some semblance of the national importance of this particular sporting event.
- robador 6y ago
  I tried looking for a source but couldn't find it: I read years ago that a survey with the question "Would you rather have an elfstedentocht or win the World Cup" was answered predominantly with the former. I've used that as an example of how important this event is for the Dutch when explaining it to my foreign friends. I'll keep looking for a source, but no doubt the elfstedentocht is one of the most important events in Dutch culture regardless.
  - Vinnl 6y ago
    That is very surprising to me. I wonder if that would still hold today, where everyone under 24 and a good deal of people a couple years older than that have never consciously experienced an Elfstedentocht. I mean, it'd be nice, but... Winning the World Cup, as arguably the foremost nation that has never done so before, we'd certainly go crazy.
    - Aeolun 6y ago
      Meh, I’m 33 now. I can’t remember the last elfstedentocht, but I’d still vote for that over winning the world cup any day. The world cup is great for sitting together and drinking beer. But we can do that without winning.
  - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
    Sooo not true. Dutchman here. Nobody cares about elfstedentocht, nobody in the civilized areas at least.
- FooBarWidget 6y ago
  I'm Dutch. I'm confused why anyone would downvote this comment. Parent has said nothing controversial or wrong, and did not violate any rules.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  You are Ackchyually.jpg
- Denvercoder9 6y ago
  > the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship Source? The last Elfstedentocht in 1997 had 9.2 million people watching it [1], while the semi-final of the Dutch national team in the world cup in 2014 had 9.1 million people watching it [2], and population had grown by ~1.5 million people in between. [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijftiende_Elfstedentocht#Records https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijftiende_Elfstedentocht#Reco... [2] https://kijkonderzoek.nl/component/kijkcijfers/file,j1-6-1-p https://kijkonderzoek.nl/component/kijkcijfers/file,j1-6-1-p
rapnie 6y ago
I get your comparison to Superbowl to highlight the popularity to people abroad. A sibling mentions the football world championship. But other than popularity there's big differences. Both Superbowl and world cup are highly organized, highly commercial events, planned way in advance, where top athletes perform. The Elfstedentocht always comes unexpectedly. When there is a cold snap in the weather, a fever starts brewing among the population. As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event. Pumping stations stop their operation to improve ice conditions, crossings are created on patches of bad ice where one walks with skates over land (called 'kluunen'), and all across the track people start to sell hot chocolate and soup. The event is a huge social happening, not just for the top athletes. The people that come last over the finish line or the ones that just did not make it within the set timeframes are as much heroes as the winner of the tour. Elfstedentocht is very much an event by the people, not an entertainment provided for the people.
- hashmush 6y ago
  Sounds like Vasaloppet, but rarer. It does have an organizer though, but still huge amounts of volunteers along and it's definitely an achievement just to complete it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet
- lcrz 6y ago
  > As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event. This is not completely accurate. Sure, koek-en-zopie stuff might be organized by local restaurants or whatever, but the Elfstedentocht itself is prepared (almost) completely every single year. There is a whole foundation with internal hierarchy that oversees the process. The whole parcourse can be constructed on a 48 hour notice. The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something, it is all pretty well organized.
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    "The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something," So do they get compensation?
Vinnl 6y ago
> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority. Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands... I don't think so. Though I guess part of it is because it wasn't a guaranteed every-year event in the first place, so it's not that much of a change.
- furyg3 6y ago
  > Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands... This is an important point for those who don't live in The Netherlands. NL has done an amazing job of marketing how 'green' they are, but has been really terrible at addressing climate change or even hitting their own climate targets.
  - rapnie 6y ago
    Indeed. The Dutch are good with water, but not with climate. May be due to lobbying power of Shell, NAM (natural gas) and Rotterdam harbour, Schiphol airport, Tata Steel, etc. on subsequent economic liberal governments, and also 'Polder model' [0] slowing / watering things down. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model
  - Someone 6y ago
    I think it’s partly the effect of being an outlier in terms of population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms), natural resources (few possibilities for hydro-electricity, for example), and quality of farmland (moving production to poorer grounds often isn’t a net win, globally) There also may be an effect that making Dutch agriculture greener makes it more competitive, increasing output and thus offsetting improvements in efficiency. But yes, such a rich country that isn’t really dependent on its agricultural output should be able to do more. Stopping fertilizer imports probably would help a lot.
    - berkes 6y ago
      > population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms) This is more an excuse than an actual reason. Because the Dutch have large patches of shallow sea: which is ideal for building huge scale windparks that are, relatively cheap. The "ground" can still be used for fishing, so you hardly loose anything. Yet even building parks in sea is met with strong opposition. From wildlife preservation orgs to people complaining that this will ruin their view over the sea. Furthermore, the IJsselmeer and Markmermeer have often been suggested as "energy storage" where water is pumped up a few meters by wind, or overcapacity electro. The Netherlands, has, in fact, build some of the largest dams in the world, but "forgot" to use them as power stations. Anyone who has ever visited Neeltje-Jans, for example, will see the opportunity to harvest some of the enormous amounts of water being pushed through the Netherlands. I live on the riverside of the Waal (part of the Rhine), where currently over 7000m³/second of (in winter warm-ish and in summer cold-ish) water passes by my office-window. There must be ways to harvest some of this energy. There is a lack of will and a lack of urgency. Not a lack of opportunities.
misja111 6y ago
> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority. I don't think that is a good comparison. The Superbowl is held every year, but the Elfstedentocht has always been a rare event depending on extreme winter conditions. From the first event in 1909 until 1997 there have been 15 of them, with the longest break between 1963 and 1985.
brnt 6y ago
So glad that as a small brnt I first used an alarm to get up and watch the 1997 edition in full. You're right, I've the feeling that my first is going to be my last as well. Superbowl doesn't do it justice, it's much more than that.
Udik 6y ago
It's not the equivalent of the superbowl for the Dutch. It was never a yearly competition to begin with. It was always a very rare and unpredictable event- the 4th edition took place 12 years after the third, and the gap had nothing to do with climate change: it was 1929.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  And it sounds like there was the potential to hold it this year but they preemptively canceled it because of covid.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Isn't 24 years well past the point of anyone caring? That's a whole generation of people becoming adults without ever experiencing the event. I think after 24 years without Superbowl, Americans would just consider it a historical curiosity, and holding it again wouldn't be a national priority.
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  It only makes the event more mythological. Also, it's easy for non-Dutch to underestimate how big of a deal speedskating is to the Dutch (and how big of a deal the Dutch are in speedskating). EDIT: I'll attempt to give an impression. The medal count at the 2018 Winter Olympics might be a good starting point, look at how the Dutch dominated that event[0]. Keep in mind that we're a really tiny nation, so that suggests a disproportionate amount of Olympic-level speedskaters per capita. Which only makes sense if it's a really big sport here. Another example: I assume that when you ask the average American who Shani Davis is you'll get a blank stare, despite his great achievements[1]. Ask the average Dutch person and they'll know, and might even tell you about "that cute fridge-scene with the Erben Wennemars picture"[2][3]. Now let's compare other nations where speedskating is still a thing. Nao Kodara might be a bit more famous in Japan than Davis is in the US, but check out her Twitter bio and you'll see a photo of the Elfstedentocht monument[4][5][6]. To professional speedskaters all over the world, the Dutch are an example (the fact that we often love them more than most people in their own country probably doesn't hurt either). So yeah, speedskating is deeply embedded in the Dutch national identity, arguably even more than soccer because it feels like our sport. You do make me wonder if narratives around national identity work a little differently on smaller scales though (remember that the Netherlands is a small nation of about 17.5 million people). Maybe the US is too big for a thing like this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2018_Winter_Olympics#Medal_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2018_Wint... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNKa6eK2NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNKa6eK2NU [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erben_Wennemars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erben_Wennemars [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_Kodaira https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_Kodaira [5] https://twitter.com/Nao_kodaira https://twitter.com/Nao_kodaira [6] https://yktoo.com/en/blog/post/2015/11/22-the-monument-of-elfstedentocht/ https://yktoo.com/en/blog/post/2015/11/22-the-monument-of-el...
amelius 6y ago
Better move to e.g. Sweden then: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/feb/10/sweden-ice-skating-holiday-lakes-touring-poetry https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/feb/10/sweden-ice-sk...

Tijdreiziger 6y ago

> This is kind of the equivalent of the Superbowl for the Dutch Uh, I'm not too familiar with the Superbowl, but the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship.

armada651 6y ago
> 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' It's not hard to compete for that title when your competition hasn't had a televised event in 24 years...
- Tijdreiziger 6y ago
  More generally, the national ice skating championships are also nowhere near as popular as the national football championship (Eredivisie).
  - armada651 6y ago
    Not every sporting event that uses a football is the same, neither is every sporting event that uses ice skates.
    - ramblerman 6y ago
      Ur digging in your heels pretty hard, but most dutch are disagreeing with you (myself included). It's just not a very fitting analogy.
      - armada651 6y ago
        Sorry if it seems I'm digging in my heels on the "equivalent" part, I should've worded that differently. If you were trying to find an equivalent Dutch sporting event to the Superbowl it would be the Eredivisie. But the point of the analogy was not to make a perfect equivalence to the Elfstedentocht, that would be impossible. The point was to convey to an American audience some semblance of the national importance of this particular sporting event.
robador 6y ago
I tried looking for a source but couldn't find it: I read years ago that a survey with the question "Would you rather have an elfstedentocht or win the World Cup" was answered predominantly with the former. I've used that as an example of how important this event is for the Dutch when explaining it to my foreign friends. I'll keep looking for a source, but no doubt the elfstedentocht is one of the most important events in Dutch culture regardless.
- Vinnl 6y ago
  That is very surprising to me. I wonder if that would still hold today, where everyone under 24 and a good deal of people a couple years older than that have never consciously experienced an Elfstedentocht. I mean, it'd be nice, but... Winning the World Cup, as arguably the foremost nation that has never done so before, we'd certainly go crazy.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Meh, I’m 33 now. I can’t remember the last elfstedentocht, but I’d still vote for that over winning the world cup any day. The world cup is great for sitting together and drinking beer. But we can do that without winning.
- mrmonkeyman 6y ago
  Sooo not true. Dutchman here. Nobody cares about elfstedentocht, nobody in the civilized areas at least.
FooBarWidget 6y ago
I'm Dutch. I'm confused why anyone would downvote this comment. Parent has said nothing controversial or wrong, and did not violate any rules.
FriendlyNormie 6y ago
You are Ackchyually.jpg
Denvercoder9 6y ago
> the title of 'most popular televised sporting event in the Netherlands' definitely goes to the football world championship Source? The last Elfstedentocht in 1997 had 9.2 million people watching it [1], while the semi-final of the Dutch national team in the world cup in 2014 had 9.1 million people watching it [2], and population had grown by ~1.5 million people in between. [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijftiende_Elfstedentocht#Records https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijftiende_Elfstedentocht#Reco... [2] https://kijkonderzoek.nl/component/kijkcijfers/file,j1-6-1-p https://kijkonderzoek.nl/component/kijkcijfers/file,j1-6-1-p

rapnie 6y ago

I get your comparison to Superbowl to highlight the popularity to people abroad. A sibling mentions the football world championship. But other than popularity there's big differences. Both Superbowl and world cup are highly organized, highly commercial events, planned way in advance, where top athletes perform. The Elfstedentocht always comes unexpectedly. When there is a cold snap in the weather, a fever starts brewing among the population. As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event. Pumping stations stop their operation to improve ice conditions, crossings are created on patches of bad ice where one walks with skates over land (called 'kluunen'), and all across the track people start to sell hot chocolate and soup. The event is a huge social happening, not just for the top athletes. The people that come last over the finish line or the ones that just did not make it within the set timeframes are as much heroes as the winner of the tour. Elfstedentocht is very much an event by the people, not an entertainment provided for the people.

hashmush 6y ago
Sounds like Vasaloppet, but rarer. It does have an organizer though, but still huge amounts of volunteers along and it's definitely an achievement just to complete it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasaloppet
lcrz 6y ago
> As ice grows thicker people from all walks of life start to get involved to organize the event. This is not completely accurate. Sure, koek-en-zopie stuff might be organized by local restaurants or whatever, but the Elfstedentocht itself is prepared (almost) completely every single year. There is a whole foundation with internal hierarchy that oversees the process. The whole parcourse can be constructed on a 48 hour notice. The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something, it is all pretty well organized.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  "The waterschappen don't stop their pumps out of hospitality or something," So do they get compensation?

Vinnl 6y ago

> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority. Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands... I don't think so. Though I guess part of it is because it wasn't a guaranteed every-year event in the first place, so it's not that much of a change.

furyg3 6y ago
> Given how much of a priority climate change has been in the Netherlands... This is an important point for those who don't live in The Netherlands. NL has done an amazing job of marketing how 'green' they are, but has been really terrible at addressing climate change or even hitting their own climate targets.
- rapnie 6y ago
  Indeed. The Dutch are good with water, but not with climate. May be due to lobbying power of Shell, NAM (natural gas) and Rotterdam harbour, Schiphol airport, Tata Steel, etc. on subsequent economic liberal governments, and also 'Polder model' [0] slowing / watering things down. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder_model
- Someone 6y ago
  I think it’s partly the effect of being an outlier in terms of population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms), natural resources (few possibilities for hydro-electricity, for example), and quality of farmland (moving production to poorer grounds often isn’t a net win, globally) There also may be an effect that making Dutch agriculture greener makes it more competitive, increasing output and thus offsetting improvements in efficiency. But yes, such a rich country that isn’t really dependent on its agricultural output should be able to do more. Stopping fertilizer imports probably would help a lot.
  - berkes 6y ago
    > population density (makes it harder to build wind or solar farms) This is more an excuse than an actual reason. Because the Dutch have large patches of shallow sea: which is ideal for building huge scale windparks that are, relatively cheap. The "ground" can still be used for fishing, so you hardly loose anything. Yet even building parks in sea is met with strong opposition. From wildlife preservation orgs to people complaining that this will ruin their view over the sea. Furthermore, the IJsselmeer and Markmermeer have often been suggested as "energy storage" where water is pumped up a few meters by wind, or overcapacity electro. The Netherlands, has, in fact, build some of the largest dams in the world, but "forgot" to use them as power stations. Anyone who has ever visited Neeltje-Jans, for example, will see the opportunity to harvest some of the enormous amounts of water being pushed through the Netherlands. I live on the riverside of the Waal (part of the Rhine), where currently over 7000m³/second of (in winter warm-ish and in summer cold-ish) water passes by my office-window. There must be ways to harvest some of this energy. There is a lack of will and a lack of urgency. Not a lack of opportunities.

misja111 6y ago

> Imagine if the real Superbowl wasn't held in 24 years due to global warming and may never happen again, perhaps then it would be more of a priority. I don't think that is a good comparison. The Superbowl is held every year, but the Elfstedentocht has always been a rare event depending on extreme winter conditions. From the first event in 1909 until 1997 there have been 15 of them, with the longest break between 1963 and 1985.

brnt 6y ago

So glad that as a small brnt I first used an alarm to get up and watch the 1997 edition in full. You're right, I've the feeling that my first is going to be my last as well. Superbowl doesn't do it justice, it's much more than that.

Udik 6y ago

It's not the equivalent of the superbowl for the Dutch. It was never a yearly competition to begin with. It was always a very rare and unpredictable event- the 4th edition took place 12 years after the third, and the gap had nothing to do with climate change: it was 1929.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
And it sounds like there was the potential to hold it this year but they preemptively canceled it because of covid.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Isn't 24 years well past the point of anyone caring? That's a whole generation of people becoming adults without ever experiencing the event. I think after 24 years without Superbowl, Americans would just consider it a historical curiosity, and holding it again wouldn't be a national priority.

vanderZwan 6y ago
It only makes the event more mythological. Also, it's easy for non-Dutch to underestimate how big of a deal speedskating is to the Dutch (and how big of a deal the Dutch are in speedskating). EDIT: I'll attempt to give an impression. The medal count at the 2018 Winter Olympics might be a good starting point, look at how the Dutch dominated that event[0]. Keep in mind that we're a really tiny nation, so that suggests a disproportionate amount of Olympic-level speedskaters per capita. Which only makes sense if it's a really big sport here. Another example: I assume that when you ask the average American who Shani Davis is you'll get a blank stare, despite his great achievements[1]. Ask the average Dutch person and they'll know, and might even tell you about "that cute fridge-scene with the Erben Wennemars picture"[2][3]. Now let's compare other nations where speedskating is still a thing. Nao Kodara might be a bit more famous in Japan than Davis is in the US, but check out her Twitter bio and you'll see a photo of the Elfstedentocht monument[4][5][6]. To professional speedskaters all over the world, the Dutch are an example (the fact that we often love them more than most people in their own country probably doesn't hurt either). So yeah, speedskating is deeply embedded in the Dutch national identity, arguably even more than soccer because it feels like our sport. You do make me wonder if narratives around national identity work a little differently on smaller scales though (remember that the Netherlands is a small nation of about 17.5 million people). Maybe the US is too big for a thing like this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2018_Winter_Olympics#Medal_summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2018_Wint... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shani_Davis [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNKa6eK2NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWNKa6eK2NU [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erben_Wennemars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erben_Wennemars [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_Kodaira https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nao_Kodaira [5] https://twitter.com/Nao_kodaira https://twitter.com/Nao_kodaira [6] https://yktoo.com/en/blog/post/2015/11/22-the-monument-of-elfstedentocht/ https://yktoo.com/en/blog/post/2015/11/22-the-monument-of-el...

amelius 6y ago

Better move to e.g. Sweden then: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/feb/10/sweden-ice-skating-holiday-lakes-touring-poetry https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/feb/10/sweden-ice-sk...