Joris van den Bergh

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Joris van den Bergh (1952)

Johannes Antonius Arnoldus "Joris" van den Bergh (born February 17, 1882 in Utrecht , † July 1, 1953 in The Hague ) was a Dutch sports journalist and author. He is considered a pioneer of Dutch sports journalism.

biography

Joris van den Bergh was a versatile athlete himself; he practiced speed skating , soccer and billiards . His greatest passion was cycling . Up to the age of 40 he worked for the Nederlandse Spoorwegen , but from the turn of the century onwards he wrote sporting articles for a number of daily and weekly newspapers, primarily about the sports he practiced himself. From the beginning of the 1920s he worked full-time as a journalist and was a permanent employee of several magazines and newspapers, including Sport , Sportwereld , Sportief and Panorama, as well as for many years The Hague sports correspondent for the Sumatrapost . His articles were marked by a biting style (polemical character) .

In 1928 van den Bergh wrote the book De Wielersport Begint , which describes the beginnings of cycling in the Netherlands. The following year Te midden followed the kampioenen over the multiple world champion Piet Moeskops and his special discipline, the track sprint . In 1941 he published the sport psychological work Mysterieuze Krachten in de Sport . He stated that "the muscles that perform have no value without the will of the mind". The latter two books are considered classics of cycling literature and are still being published.

It was on van den Bergh's initiative that a first four-man Dutch national team took part in the Tour de France in 1936 . The support of his Flemish colleague Karel Van Wijnendaele and the failure of the Italian drivers due to the Abyssinian War were helpful for his endeavor . When he approached the driver Theo Middelkamp about participating, he replied: "But Joris, I've never seen a mountain." Middelkamp started, won a difficult mountain stage and was 23rd in the overall standings. Van den Bergh himself did not go to France, but concentrated on reporting from home, based on reports in Belgian newspapers, telexes and telephone conversations with the racing drivers. On site, Joris van den Bergh acted as team leader on the tour in 1939 , 1948 and 1949 . In 1939 he was chauffeured by Moeskops.

Van den Bergh's real love was track cycling , and his affinity and knowledge of road cycling were significantly lower. From this time comes the anecdote that van den Bergh was of the opinion that road racing drivers had it easier than their companions in the hot, narrow cars that could not feel the cooling wind. He also fell victim to the misjudgment that the Italian racing driver Fausto Coppi was nothing more than "een mannetje met een kippenborst" (German = "a little man with a chicken breast").

In the 1930s, Joris van den Bergh initially took the view that a Europe under German leadership was “not a bad idea”, which caused bad blood among colleagues. In August 1942, during the German occupation of the Netherlands , he also took part in a meeting of sports journalists in Valkenburg organized by the NSB and subsequently praised this meeting as a "historic moment" in the magazine De Nederlandsche Journalist . His enthusiasm was based on a speech given by the State Secretary of the Ministerie van Volksvoorlichting en Kunsten , Tobie Goedewaagen , who had emphasized the importance of sports journalism. In 1944, however, he published the brochure De post in de vloeiweide . In it he described in a dramatic way the attack by "villains of the SS " on a radio station of the Dutch resistance near Breda , in which nine Dutch people, including a child, were killed; eight other people were executed the following day. Van den Bergh, who knew some of the dead and had met them shortly before, made no secret of his disgust for the Germans.

Another passion of van den Bergh was the Utrecht family circus, Circus Van Bever , with which he also traveled through the country for some time and about which he wrote a book in 1946.

On July 1, 1953, Joris van den Bergh died of a heart attack. In one of his last articles about cycling he wrote, which condemned doping and collusion: "Zolang de bedrieger wordt bedrogen, zolang primeert de coveted dead win." (German = "As long as the cheater is cheated, the desire to win prevails." ) Four weeks after his death, on July 28th, after their victorious participation in the tour , the Dutch national team was solemnly welcomed by 35,000 spectators in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam . Thousands of people rose and held two minutes of silence in memory of van den Bergh.

Publications

literature

  • Ron Couwenhoven: Vijftig jaar te midden der Kampioenen. Leven en works by Joris van den Bergh . De Buitenspelers 2010, ISBN 978-9071359231 (Dutch)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b G.W. Overdijkink: Bergh, Johannes Antonius Arnoldus van den (1882-1953). Biographical Woordenboek van Nederland, November 12, 2013, accessed December 21, 2014 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ a b c d Gijs Zandbergen: Pioneer van de sportjournalistiek. de Volkskrant , October 10, 1996, accessed December 20, 2014 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ a b Author: Joris Van Den Bergh. Wielersportboeken, accessed December 20, 2014 (Dutch).
  4. ↑ a b Jeroen Wielaert: ALTIJD DE TOUR 2: De Etappe van Joris. (No longer available online.) NOS July 5, 2009, archived from the original on December 21, 2014 ; Retrieved December 21, 2014 (Dutch). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / weblogs.nos.nl
  5. ↑ a b Bergh, Joris van den. eengoedsportverhaal.nl, accessed on December 21, 2014 (Dutch).
  6. ^ Adriaan Venema: Schrijvers, uitgevers en hun collaboratie. Part 4: Uitgevers en boekhandelaren . Amsterdam 1992. p. 289 (Dutch)
  7. ^ Sports journalist te Valkenburg. De Nederlandsche Journalist, September 1942, accessed December 22, 2014 .
  8. ↑ Bart Jungmann: Joris van den Bergh, de eerste die zocht naar het waarom. de Volkskrant , October 8, 2010, accessed December 20, 2014 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Bergh, Joris van den
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bergh, Johannes Antonius Arnoldus van den (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch sports journalist and book author
DATE OF BIRTH February 17, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Utrecht
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1953
Place of death The hague