Megmeister Partners up With TalentNED

A new partnership that will help build future winners

Interview with Gerard Kemkers, successful Olympic speed skating coach, who won seven gold medals at the Olympics; and is now director of TalentNED, a new organization looking to give talented athletes a solid chance of a successful career in professional sports.

TalentNED is very excited to get Megmeister on board as our base layer partner. Together with our clothing partner Bioracer, which supplies us with cycling, speedskating and casual wear, we can now offer all our athletes a full clothing package. For us it’s another milestone in the building process for our organization, which was founded mid-2018. We started by embracing a number of pro speed skaters, including Olympic gold medal winners Ireen Wüst and Esmee Visser. This helped us build our brand, network and infrastructure. After two years working at the senior athlete level, TalentNED moved on from ‘established’ athletes and stepped into talent development.

Gerard Kemkers: “After two years we finally started working with younger talented athletes. The talent development project took off and we are now building future generations of successful and sustainable careers in elite sports. With a unique vision regarding talent development, we welcome 16 to 20 year old athletes in our program. We provide them with a full-time program, including sport specific training, movement training, nutritional coaching, psychological and pedagogical guidance, educational support, sports medical supervision and so on. Our athletes live together in the TalentNED Academy, which is situated in Enschede, The Netherlands.

“At TalentNED, growing is more important than performing. All the decisions that we make are aimed at improving the athlete. Of course we are looking to win races, but never at the cost of the long term: the athlete’s career and the TalentNED environment. This is a process of making errors, falling and getting back up, learning, asking questions and getting out of your comfort zone.”

TalentNED currently facilitates 17 athletes within two sports: mountain biking and speed skating. These athletes are among the most talented athletes in The Netherlands. They come from all over the country to Enschede, where TalentNED’s founding father Infestos is also situated.

“Thanks to Infestos, we are able to do all of this. It’s a very noble way to say: we care about sports and we want to make sure that The Netherlands can keep on celebrating sports victories in the future. We are willing to invest in talent and this is what talent development is all about. You need to do something right now, in order to benefit at some point in the future.

“It’s really great that such an innovative company as Megmeister is willing to help our young talented athletes towards fulfilling their dream of making it to the pro level. I’m sure our athletes will be forever grateful and will continue to wear the Megmeister base layers once they make the next step in their career.”