Meeting Dennis van der Geest

T. trying hard to follow the warming-up

Today was THE day.
The day the boys were going to follow the clinic Dennis (worldchampion, Elco his brother, European champion, their father Cor and another European worldchamp (in another weight class) Ben Sonneman were giving.

As it was also a fundraiser, they had clearly hoped for more children, but with the 200/300 that were there, it still was quite an event.
They started at 2 with some warming up, then they divided the groups into same ages and practiced throws and they ended with Dennis "fighting" 10 kids.
That was hilarious. They had 5 children over 12 yrs and 5 around 5/6 yrs.
Even with the bigger kids there was no real fight (although some of them were clearly very good). The man is 125 kilo's and in the prime of his life.
He was just picking up kids and throwing them in the air.
He even held his brother Elco above his head one time.
It ended about 3.30 and then we had to wait for the amount raised (slightly over 8000 euro) to be announced, the children were getting a drink and you could get into line to get autograph.
R. Volunteered to be in the line but even after half an hr was getting nowhere.
By then the kids (who were still running around like madman) were exhausted and we called it a day. We sneaked by the whole line, (Dennis was the last one), got his autograph and went for a pancake.