Nina Derwael might miss Euros

Nina Derwael had quite a year in 2018. First, she became the European bars champion for the second time, and then she won gold on bars at Worlds, becoming the first ever World champion from Belgium. However, the success also brought many events that hindered her training progress. In addition, Derwael suffered a minor finger injury that limited her training and was only able to return to full-strength training recently.

In an interview to Sporza.be (translated by Elisabeth) Derwael said that her participation in the upcoming European Championships is still in question, as her main goal for the season is to help the team qualify to the Olympics at Worlds rather than focusing on individual medals.

On getting the recognition after winning gold at Worlds:

“I’m super happy with all the recognition, but it was overwhelming. I underestimated it a little. It cost me more energy than I initially thought.”

Her coach, Marjorie Heuls, confirms:

“By the end of December, Nina was very tired. She was disappointed when, at an evaluation, she realized she hadn’t progressed the way she had hoped. So now I try to block all of that as much as possible. You can call me the bad guy.”

Derwael hoped to upgrade but was not yet able to:

“It’s true I have room to improve, and that frustrates me. It’s annoying that I’m now falling back on the same routine I did at Worlds, knowing that back then, there was still much room to grow. And after two European titles and the gold medal at Worlds, the expectations have become higher. It does influence me subconsciously, even though I say I don’t pay attention to it.”

Derwael plans on competing in Doha in two weeks and then will decide on whether to go to Euros:

“The World Cup in Doha, the same place where I became world champion, will be my first competition of 2019. Then we’ll decide about European Championships. As the reigning European champion, of course, you want to defend your title. But on the other hand, you have to think about what’s the smartest thing to do. And then I think about the World Championship, with the team. The Belgian team is much more important to me than a third European medal. This year the team has absolute priority. Everything else will have to take a back seat. The goal is to qualify a team to the Olympic Games again. Everything you do in training is for the team. That provides an extra motivation to keep going.”