Cooking on campus with top athletes: "Nutrition is just as important as training"

Banana and oatmeal pancake

Combining high-level sports and top-level studies is a challenge. Therefore, the top athletes receive support from the university, Erasmus Sport and Rotterdam Topsport. Nur Al Jawahiri is happy with it. She is a football player for Excelsior Rotterdam Women and first-year medical student. "I can arrange something with my teacher when there is a compulsory lesson that I cannot attend. So far, I can pretty much combine it."

The football player is consciously and unconsciously very involved with nutrition: "I train every day, so I have to eat enough. Also for my recovery. At the club we have a sponsor who arranges protein shakes and sports bars for us. They think about that too." Her tip for a healthy and tasty breakfast: banana pancakes. "That's banana, oatmeal, milk and eggs. Tasty and healthy too. I like sweet things in the morning. You don't need to add anything sweet because the bananas are already sweet. It is a good idea to use slightly older bananas. We are also publishing a cookbook with Excelsior. This recipe will also be in it."

"Puzzling what works best for you"

Selma Konijn is in her first year at our university: the pre-master Pedagogical Sciences in the direction of Orthopedagogics. She is also one of the top Dutch canoeists. "You have to paddle as hard as possible to the finish. I participate in competitions all over the world. My goal is to reach the Olympics."

Canoeing is really a strength sport. There, too, nutrition is important for recovery. "I already knew a lot about nutrition. Today it was emphasised again that proteins before going to sleep are important. Your resting heart rate is higher during the first part of your sleep because you are still digesting the nutrients. If you really notice this, you can also eat the protein two hours before you go to sleep. What works best is a puzzle for everyone. It's really different for each person."

During the cooking course, Selma also learnt tricks for the kitchen: putting vegetables in the blender and making stock of them for risotto. "I have never done that before, but it is a good way to eat lots of vegetables. I am going to do that at home too. We cooked the risotto in the sauce and it really gave it a different flavour."

"Actually, I eat whatever I feel like"

The first Dutch woman at the Olympics in the steeplechase event is Irene van der Reijken. Steeplechase is an obstacle course on the athletics track with beams and water bowls. For the sixth-year medical student, it is especially important to maintain her weight. "Endurance athletes quickly become too light. Many people think that light people are fast, but it actually makes them susceptible to injury. And that you no longer have any energy for training and competitions. Eating enough is important."

Irene does not pay much attention to her diet. "I eat whatever I feel like eating. I don't count calories and I also eat biscuits. But generally I eat healthy. Nine times out of ten it is vegetarian. I try to eat a lot of vegetables."