National coach Jeno van Opstal of the Dutch flag football delegation has been elected Sports Coach of the Year in his hometown of Lelystad.

He became coach of the Dutch flag football team in 2025 and is targeting qualification for the 2028 Olympics.

Van Opstal mainly thanks his family for this award: “We have made sacrifices so that I could engage in a restructuring of the Dutch team. Van Opstal mainly thanks his family for this award: “We have made sacrifices so that I could engage in a restructuring of the Dutch team. Unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired result, but the Olympic dream is still alive.”

Self-critical: “We are looking for ourselves, for the different composition of characters that will represent the Netherlands. The batch that participated in the European Championships consisted too much of athletes. We underestimated the mental part and in the end that was our shortcoming. We learned from that. We said goodbye to half of the players.”

The national coach sees that the Netherlands is not yet among the group of contenders. The next activity on the agenda will hopefully be a Benelux tournament with Belgium and Luxembourg.

Basketball player Dwayne Aristode has been named Sportsman of the Year 2025 in Lelystad. Aristode made great strides in his sport last year, and is on the cusp of the NBA. Among the women, the title went to Lapanda Mampikin. The powerlifter grabbed both the Dutch and European titles last year.

The sports elections were organized by Sportbedrijf Lelystad in cooperation with the municipality of Lelystad.