Jacco Verhaeren He has been one of the most respected figures around the pool since Olympic swimming champions began emerging in the late 1990s from the model PSV Eindhoven swimmer training center he coached. After being recruited by the Australian Swimming Federation, the 54-year-old Dutchman is now the technical director of the French Swimming Federation and will therefore be in charge of directing local swimmers to their Olympic Games this summer in Paris. But this winter he will combine his main work with another very exciting one for his resume. He will join the staff of the mighty Jumbo-Visma, or Visma-Lease of Bikes as it should be called from now on, for the physical preparation of the cyclists of the best team in the world.
The Jumbo-Visma team, as it continues to be called in its networks today despite the agreement reached with Lease a Bike, has a first-class high-performance staff to which Verhaeren will lend his experience, but because inconsistency with which 2024 is his main task, which led French swimming to glory in Paris’2024, he is not a ‘full time’ incorporation, but he will advise in the winter preseason
“Over the years I often exchanged ideas with Jacco,” he said. Merijn Zeeman, the technical director of the Dutch squad. “After our best season, we have to keep looking for improvements and new knowledge. Together with Mathieu Heijboer, I decided that Jacco can bring us new ideas and different knowledge from another sport. Let’s start us in a small collaboration and, hopefully, make it more,” he declared.
And Verhaeren is immersed in making his swimmers Olympic champions again, just as he has done his countrymen in the past. Pieter van den Hoogenband and Inge de Bruijn, the big stars of Sydney’2000 and Athens’2004, or Ranomi Kromowidjojo, in London’2012. Starting in 2013, he was hired to revive Australian swimming after the failure of London. At the World Cups ahead of Tokyo’2020, they added seven gold medals in Fukuoka, but they missed out on the Japanese event which was postponed due to the pandemic after resigning “due to personal problems”, their children are getting older and want they already to educate them in the Dutch system. Three years ago, he was recruited by the French Federation to direct the preparation for Paris’2024, where they will have Léon Marchand as a candidate to become a big star.
“Knowledge sharing is the reason for this collaboration,” he explained. Verhaeren. “I want to know more about cycling and I will give my opinion, among other things, on the performance and training processes. But not full-time, because I am fully committed to the French swimming team in the run-up to competition. Games Olympics. However, I am happy to shed some light on the current performance approach of the Jumbo-Visma team. It is great to think with the most successful cycling team. I do this from a swimming perspective. Whatever the Jumbo team does – Visma with my advice will depend on them,” he explained.
Verhaeren has had great experiences exchanging knowledge with other sports and industries. “I want to immerse myself in the strategy of the Jumbo-Visma team because I can benefit from it. The relationship between equipment, nutrition, training and race strategy is fascinating. It inspires me a lot, ” said Verhaeren.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
