'I don't want to spend all day just doing sports, I want to do other things too'

Elise is breaking record after record. In 2025, she competed in the European Championships in Tampere, Finland, where she won the gold medal for TeamNL. Elise has been jumping since she was a child. Last year, she faced a difficult choice: whether to start a university degree alongside her professional sports career.

Living at home makes it easier

It quickly became clear to her that she wanted to go to university. Her trainer suggested she go to a university of applied sciences and set the bar a little lower for her studies. But Elise wasn't keen on that: 'I wanted the challenge of university'.

At first, she didn't want to choose Rotterdam, because she already lived there and she also wanted to get to know another student city. After visiting many universities and figuring out what was possible, she decided on Rotterdam after all. Because whether it is logistically feasible is an important condition for successfully combining studying and top-level sport.

Elise does fitness training and strength training at the PAC athletics club in Rotterdam and trains in Alphen aan de Rijn for pole vaulting. Elise says: 'After a tough training session, a hot meal is waiting for me at my parents' house. That also makes it possible for me to do all this!' She chose to study Econometrics because Mathematics D, a subject offered at her secondary school, was her favourite subject.

Help from the university

Because Elise had not taken her final exams in Economics, she had to work hard at the beginning of her studies to catch up. She succeeded and passed all her courses in her first year. She did have a bit of luck with the timing of the tournaments: only once did an exam coincide with an international tournament and she had to retake it. Twice, she was able to take an exam online, which helped.

About help from the university, Elise says: 'At first, I didn't know how to go about it. Then I emailed Rebekka. She referred me to the study advisor.' Rebekka de Kogel-Kadijk is a top-level sports coordinator at Erasmus Sport. Every year, Rebekka coaches between 70 and 100 top athletes. 'I ask the study advisers for their understanding,' she says. 'I understand that not everything is possible, but how great is it that a top athlete can also get a degree!'

The importance of support

Fortunately, Elise has people around her with whom she can talk about the choices she has to make when it comes to combining her studies and top-level sport. Elise says: 'I have a training partner who also does pole vaulting. I sometimes talk to her about it; she studies in Amsterdam. And there are other ambitious athletes in the training group. Not everyone may be involved in top-level sport, but we all spend a lot of time on the sport.'

Elise enjoys being able to talk to her training partners about the choices she has to make. 'And I also talk about it a lot with my parents. They mainly say that I should enjoy myself. They want me to finish my studies, but they understand that I am falling behind now. And they also check to see if I'm doing okay.'