Commit to the Long Game

The dream of top sports sounded beautiful from the outside. Inside it contained sacrifice: Missing parties, losing contact with friends, leaving a normal school path, tired training, recovering, eating, sleeping, travelling, failing and coming back.

Rio brought an Olympic silver medal. Later, the World Cup in India brought a different kind of test. On 3 December 2018, during a match against India, I was injured. I knew immediately that my tournament was over. I threw away my stick, cried, returned to the hotel, and eventually went home. At that moment, it felt as though years of work had collapsed.

Back in Belgium the setback slowly changed shape. Instead of making the World Cup video I planned, I surprised a young boy at his school. I read. I wrote. On the run home someone gave me a note: Nothing's so broken it can't be fixed.

The injury returned the central question to me: if something outside my control interrupts the dream, does the dream disappear or does devotion change form? My answer was to come back. Keep moving. Even when the movement is small.

The long term is not endless. It's the ability to keep adjusting without giving up what matters.

Sacrifice is part of any serious ambition, but sacrifice needs meaning. Pain itself is not noble. Working hard in itself is not intelligent.

Ask at a bad time: What does this moment require? Sometimes push. Sometimes recover. Sometimes asking for help. Sometimes change the method. But if the goal still matters and the road is healthy enough: Go on.