Boxing is one of the nine choice-sports during the GNSK. © Marte Hofsteenge
At the GNSK, held in a different university town each year, university teams compete for the title of ‘best student team in the Netherlands’. Eight sports are permanent fixtures (football, tennis, basketball, badminton, handball, fencing, volleyball and squash), and there are a few optional sports that vary each year.
The Wageningen GNSK has selected nine optional sports: gymnastics, weight-lifting, the triathlon, hockey, rugby sevens, beach korfball, cycling, Frisbee and boxing. ‘We mainly went by which student sports clubs are very active here, what our facilities are suitable for, and which sports were chosen in previous years,’ says board member Luc Roefs. ‘The new sports hall has a lot of gymnastics equipment, and the Wageningen Beasts are an enthusiastic and talented club. The nice thing is that there has never been gymnastics or weight-lifting at a GNSK, nor the triathlon or hockey either.’ The typically Wageningen knotsball didn’t make the selection. The GNSK starts on Friday 8 June and goes on until the end of Sunday 10 June. The campus and the Bongerd will be transformed into festival grounds with a campsite. Registration starts from 1 March.