Waching daily May 1 2017

Good that you're watching Student Report,

the channel that brings difficult UT business, the easy way.

This month, we look back on the Batavierenrace.

What kind of things needed to be organized,

and why is it such a special event?

Student Report finds out.

The Batavierenrace is a relay running race from Nijmegen to Enschede.

Every year, approximately 8500 students join in the race.

Together with the 700 volunteers,

this makes it the biggest relay running race in the world,

in the Guinnes book of World Records.

The Batavierenrace starts at Friday night in Nijmegen,

and ends on Saturday afternoon in Enschede.

The route of the Batavierenrace has a total length of 175 km,

and is split into 25 stages.

The length of one stage differs between 3 to 10 km.

For each stage, it is indicated whether it should be run by a man or a woman.

The runner has to run from switch point to switch point,

and is accompanied by a team mate on a bicycle.

At the switch point between the stages,

the next runner is ready to take over the runners vest,

which contains a chip for time registration.

The race is divided into three shifts, because a couple of restarts are necessary,

due to the speed differences between the teams.

Now, the runners stay close together.

The night shift runs from Nijmegen to Ulft,

the morning shift from Ulft to Barchem,

and the afternoon shift runs from Barchem to the Oude markt in Enschede.

From there, the last runners run to the UTrack, at the campus of the University of Twente.

There, the race ends with a big party.

Where are you from?

I am from Amsterdam.

From Arnhem.

Yeah.

Yeah, from Arnhem.

I am from Eindhoven.

I am from El Salvador.

For me, the most important thing is that I can do a salto at the finish line.

Because yeah, you need some way to show people that you are from a gymnastics association.

Could you perhaps tell us how the Batavierenrace is organized?

We have a script from earlier years,

this is the 45th year,

so luckily we can use a lot of tips and tricks of earlier years,

to learn which people we should contact.

But it still remains quite a challenge,

because it is still the first time that you come into contact with all the new people.

What is the weirdest question that you have ever received here?

Sometimes we get called by people who are in the middle of the race,

who parked their van in some random street in Germany, and then they ask us where they have to go.

We are of course in Enschede, so we cannot help them.

The Batavierenrace is a big event, so every time you discover something new.

Even after the third time there are things that you don't know.

Why does the UT engage in activities outside of education?

We really value student activism, meaning students develop themselves.

And this is a very nice example of that.

We also value entrepreneurship and collaboration.

Why are you leaving with such a large bus, and not with a smaller one, like many others?

The small busses are used during the stages, to transfer the teams from switch point to switch point,

and the large busses are used to transfer everyone from the camping to the restarts.

Did you sleep alright last night?

I haven't slept yet, I ran the race last night.

Okay, and how did that go?

Quite alright, I did not expect to run so fast.

Do you have any goal that you would like to reach?

Yes, finish the stage that I have to run.

Are you going to carry this speaker the entire race?

Yes, and this bad boy is also coming with us.

We are going to run quite some kilometres with some load, but that's part of the game right?

In this room are the competition secretariat, the internet committee and the IBART committee, that do the time observation.

Here all the race times are processed to become actual results.

We also receive protests from teams.

The most fun part is to enter the city, because first you are in the middle of nowhere for a while,

and suddenly there are a lot people to cheer for you.

Is this the first Batavierenrace that you run?

Yes, yes it is. But it certainly won't be the last.

Did you just run the race?

In this suit? Why did you run in this suit?

The suit is from Aloha, the triatlon association from the UT. We run the final stage in our mascotte suit.

Hi, what happened to you?

They threw cake in my face.

Who did that?

The members of our association, they think that that's fun.

And did you do the salto at the finish line?

You did two saltos?

I did one salto in front of the audience, and one at the finish line.

Yeah, that was fun.

I still had a bit of energy left to do it.

Just like every year, the Batavierenrace ends with a great party.

We are going to join the party, would you like to see more videos like this?

Like our Facebookpage or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

This was Student Report, see you next time.