Sports · Other Sports · 5 hrs ago
TalentNED skating program to close after 2026/2027 season
Gerard Kemkers says TalentNED will close after the 2026/2027 skating season.
The Dutch program was set up in 2018 to help young skaters build careers and move into professional teams.
Its athletes lived, trained and studied at an academy in Enschede.
Kemkers says the program did not achieve lasting cooperation with the Dutch skating world, including the national skating federation, KNSB.
He says TalentNED felt obstructed, while stressing that the problem lay with the federation’s previous leadership.
The program helped develop skaters who went on to succeed at higher levels.
Its closure matters because it removes one route for young athletes to develop before joining major teams.
TalentNED will end when the 2026/2027 season concludes.
TalentNED will end its skating program after the 2026/2027 season, concluding nine years of work with young skaters.
Director Gerard Kemkers said the program is closing because it did not achieve enough cooperation with the wider Dutch skating world.
TalentNED was set up to help young athletes develop and move on to major professional teams.
The program was based at the TalentNED Academy in Enschede, where athletes lived, trained and studied.
The program’s reported achievements include 63 Dutch junior titles and 25 professional contracts with top teams.
- Who
- TalentNED, the skating development program set up by Gerard Kemkers.
- What
- The program will close after the 2026/2027 skating season.
- When
- After the 2026/2027 season.
- Where
- Enschede, the program’s base.
- Why
- Kemkers said cooperation with the wider Dutch skating world did not develop sufficiently.
TalentNED and Gerard Kemkers
KNSB
Cooperation
TalentNED and Gerard Kemkers
Kemkers said the hoped-for cooperation with the wider skating world never came about.
KNSB
The KNSB made its own choices in talent policy; the sources do not give a fuller response from the skating federation.
Support and treatment
TalentNED and Gerard Kemkers
TalentNED said it experienced little support and even obstruction from the KNSB.
KNSB
The KNSB said it regretted TalentNED’s departure.
Gerard Kemkers set up TalentNED to give young skating talents a foundation for their careers.
The program shifted its focus fully to talent development.
TalentNED’s skating program is due to end.
- Program
- TalentNED
- Director
- Gerard Kemkers
- Base
- Enschede
- Dutch junior titles
- 63
- World junior championship places
- 19
- Professional contracts with top teams
- 25
3 sources
What people are saying
That do you preferably together with the rest of the skating world, but that cooperation has not come about in all those years.
We experienced deliberate blockages from the KNSB to undermine the team's right to exist and clearly give our athletes fewer opportunities.
It is unwise to stay, because it works against us.