Lander Hendrickx is a young and talented Belgian swimmer born in 1994 that recently tried to qualify for the 1500m freestyle for European Championships but fell short of a few seconds.
Hendrickx comes from Leuven (Belgium) and started swimming at the age of 8. When he turned 15, he decided to start doing morning sessions because he really wanted to become a great swimmer. It was hard for him to combine it with school but he kept pushing through. He’s now in college and studies commercial engineering at Ghent University. He decided to be part of the program called TWC (Training Centrum Wachtebeke) along with 8 other Belgian swimmers to focus on swimming. His coaches are Wauter Derycke and Rik Valcke.
Swimming World sat down with him and asked him a few questions about his training and how he felt after missing the European cut for the 1500m freestyle. He mentioned how well his training was going and that he feels like he is getting stronger everyday but he needs to make sure he gets enough rest in between sessions. Because if he doesn’t his body doesn’t respond well at all. For example he swam at Dutch nationals in Tilburg a few weeks ago and had to scratch two races in the afternoon because he felt too weak. Hendrickx says it may be due to the Dutch food and the amount of races he did the first two days but he isn’t sure.
With the encouragement of his coaching staff, he continued to work hard following that weekend. He spent a week at the Lanzarote Olympic center (Spain) with a bunch of members from the Belgian Olympic Team – swimmers, track and field athletes, triathletes etc. He said it was a great time for team bonding with other athletes from the Belgian Olympic team.
He flew back to Belgium Friday around 10.00 pm which wasn’t ideal for the racing weekend in Ghent ahead of him. Indeed Hendrickx was participating at Belgian Short Course Nationals.
This meet wasn’t one of his main goals for the year but he still wanted to perform well because it could have offered him another ticket for European Championships in December. On Saturday he swam the 400m IM (4.13.50), the 100m backstroke (55.49) and the 400m freestyle (3.48.32). On Sunday he swam the 50m backstroke in the morning but scratched it for the final to increase his chances for a great 1500m freestyle. The qualifying time for European Championships is 14.55.06 but Hendrickx fell short and ended up swimming 15.01.64.
He didn’t have time to feel sad or disappointed because he had to swim the final of the 200m backstroke (1.57.75) 10 short minutes after. He said it was a real challenge for him adding that he was really tired this weekend and felt almost empty last night when the championship ended. He admitted to not succeeding to get and stay inside his goal pace in the 1500m freestyle. His coach Rik wasn’t happy with that race, but was satisfied with the rest of the races.
Now he will focus in the 400m freestyle at European Championships in Israel in December. He’s looking forward to it and hopes to be racing under his best time ever of 3.42.99. He explains that it should be possible and might even get him a lane in the European final, which would be his greatest achievement so far.