Chris van Stijn and his granddaughter, Kayla van Stijn,
walk in the Dunedin suburb of Brockville last night. The
pair will take part in the Dunedin half marathon today.
Photo by Peter McIntosh.
Chris van Stijn will have good company when he walks the
Dunedin half marathon tomorrow.
Van Stijn (73) will be accompanied by his 22-year-old
granddaughter, Kayla, and, in an attempt to gain an edge over
everybody else, he has also treated himself to a No 2
haircut.
"It all helps," he said.
Van Stijn emigrated from Holland in 1956, taking up work at
the old Roslyn Mills as a loom tuner. A keen sportsman, he
has been more focused on walking in recent years.
He walks rather than takes the car, and goes for a 4hr walk
every Sunday.
"I'm not so keen on walking in the rain now, so I hope it is
dry on Sunday. But it is only 20km."
This is the third time Stijn has walked the harbour event.
He did it in 3hr 33min two years ago and managed 3hr 38min
last year.
"I'd like to go a little bit lower," he said of his time.
Earlier this year, van Stijn completed the Walk of the World,
one of the most famous walking events on the international
calendar, in Holland.
He had entered the event two years ago, but organisers called
it off after the first day because of extreme heat and the
deaths of two competitors.
Before that, van Stijn had only ever had one previous
association with the world's premier walking event.
In 1955, he took part while completing two years of
compulsory military training in the Dutch army.
The event coincides with a festival in the Dutch student town
of Nijmegen.
The walk is a cloverleaf shape and comprises daily walks over
distances dependent on age and gender.
For van Stijn, it included a walk each day of just over 30km
for a total at the end of four days of 124.6km.
Younger people are required to do between 40km and 50km a
day.
He estimated that it had a field of "a couple of thousand"
when he first competed in 1955.
This year competitor numbers were cut off at 45,000, with
organisers once again receiving entries from all around the
world.
Because he competed this year, van Stijn has an automatic
entry into next year's Nijmegen Walk, but has yet to make up
his mind whether to accept it because of the expense. "It's a
long way away you know, and of course there is a lot of
training involved."
If van Stijn does not accept his right of automatic entry for
next year, he will then have to go back into a ballot to
contest any future event.
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