Nils van der Poel has ‘conviction’ to retire after admitting speed skating ‘sucks’ at Winter Olympics 2022

ByBen Snowball

Published 11/02/2022 at 13:49 GMT

Nils van der Poel says he intends to retire after the World Championships in March, although he has stated he is leaving speed skating before. Van der Poel broke his own world record to add 10000m gold to his 5000m title as he completed the distance double, just like at he did at the 2021 Worlds. He has been famously outspoken about his relationship with the sport, claiming “it sucks”.

Nils van der Poel has revealed his “conviction” to retire in March after he secured the speed skating distance double at Beijing 2022.

The Swede, 25, followed up his victory in the 5000m with a world record triumph over 10000m – just days after he accused the Dutch teams of manipulating the ice.

Van der Poel was unhappy to learn that Dutch sports scientist Sander van Ginkel was in Beijing looking to make the ice as hard as possible, branding it the “biggest scandal in our sport”.

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And despite seeing off the Dutch threat in China, it appears Van der Poel is ready to hang up his skates and leave a sport he has enjoyed a love-hate relationship with.

"It feels like few people have the privilege of being able to end like this," van der Poel told Discovery right after his race.

Asked later whether that means the end of his career, he then told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet: "That is my conviction. But I've been wrong about that conviction before. We'll see what happens."

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Van der Poel still intends to compete at the World Championships in March before taking a final decision on whether to continue racing next season.

"We'll see at the World Cup premiere in November whether or not I'm at the starting line," he said.

"Today I'm looking forward to the world championships in March and the World Cup finals. But I'm not really keen on sitting on a bike for seven hours a day in April, May, June and July. But maybe I will be later. If I quit skating it will be because I feel I'm done with absolute elite level sport and want a different kind of life instead."

After his 5000m triumph, Van der Poel – who also won the distance double at the 2021 World Championships – opened up about why he took a break after disappointing results at PyeongChang 2018.

According to the New York Times, Van der Poel's list of adventures included joining the Swedish army, running ultra-marathons and biking across Sweden.

"When you are a professional athlete in a sport that sucks as much as speed skating sucks, you've got to find a way to make it suck a little less," van der Poel said. "And whatever you can get inspired by, you need to find that."

He added: "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 [Germany] 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."

'He's won our hearts!' - Van der Poel storms to Olympic record and 5000m gold

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