Hans van Zetten will immediately say goodbye to the NOS, the broadcaster reported on Monday. The 72-year-old gymnastics commentator draws his conclusions from controversial statements from 2011 that recently came to light.
Hans van Zetten will immediately say goodbye to the NOS, the broadcaster reported on Monday. The 72-year-old gymnastics commentator draws his conclusions from controversial statements from 2011 that recently came to light.
Earlier this month, an investigation by the magazine Helden revealed that nine years ago Van Zetten had made an inappropriate and hurtful comment about young gymnasts at Pro Patria, the Zoetermeer gymnastics association of which he is an honorary member.
The publications led to a conversation between NOS and Van Zetten. The commentator said in the conversation that he will stop as a freelance commentator and the NOS thinks this is a wise decision.
“The statements made do not fit in any way with everything that we, as NOS, stand for. Hans’s expertise as a gymnastics commentator is completely beyond dispute, but our profession is also about credibility”, says Maarten Nooter, editor-in-chief of NOS Sport.
“In 2020 we are still revelations about abuses in the gymnastics world. A NOS commentator must be able to speak and judge about this without prejudice and with respect. And so this is a wise decision, however unfortunate it is that after 34 years ends soon. ”
Van Zetten commentator on Olympic title Zonderland
For many years, Van Zetten was a commentator at important gymnastics competitions. He is known for his enthusiastic commentary on the exercise with which Epke Zonderland took Olympic gold on the horizontal bar in 2012. “He is standing, and I am standing too, it is unprecedented”, he said, among other things.
In a personal statement, Van Zetten, who had been hurtful about gymnasts Verona van der Leur, Suzanne Harmes and Gabrielle Wammes, among others, apologized to the NOS. “In retrospect, I find the sentences harsh and possibly hurtful, and in any case not appropriate for what I stand for as a former coach and national coach,” he says.
“For years I have interpreted your great gymnastics performances on TV with a lot of passion. Millions of viewers enjoyed it. And then you certainly do not deserve that I spoke so disdainfully about your testimonials at the end of 2011. I apologize for the described statements On.”
Gymnastics is currently under a magnifying glass after a series of revelations about mental and sometimes physical abuse by coaches, also in the Netherlands. There is still an independent investigation into the abuses in gymnastics.
