1928 Belgium–Netherlands women's athletics competition

The 1928 Belgium-Netherlands women's athletics competition was an international women's athletics competition on 3 June 1928 at the Sports Parc of Royal Uccle Sport in Brussels, Belgium.
While being held in Belgium, the competition was organized by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation. The competition was the first international competition for Dutch women. It was organized to gain international experience in preparation for the 1928 Summer Olympics.
The competition was won by the Netherlands with 50 points versus Belgium with 40 points. In general, the competition for the Netherlands was seen as a success, although there were also some setbacks. According to the Dutch media, the Belgians performed less well than expected with only setting one Belgian record by discus thrower Jenny Toitgans.
During the competition Lien Gisolf set a new record in the high jump. With a jump over 1.582 metres she beated the old record of Green of 1.55 metres. Besides of that Ter Horst set a new Dutch national record in the 100 metres; Michael's set a new Dutch record in the discus throw and Jenny Toitgans set a new Belgian record in the discus throw.
Background and preparations
For the first time, women's athletic events would be held at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. As the Dutch women's didn't have international experience the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation organized two international competition. This competition against Belgium and a competition against West-Germany to gain the Dutch women international experience. Some athletes were trained ahead of the competition by B. Verwaal. Belgian women already had some international experience as they competed in an international competition organized by the Brussels Femina Club in Brussels at the Josephat Parc against France and Great Britain in 1927.
The competition took place at the Sport Parc of Royal Uccle Sport. The field was was described as not very good being small, with a hard and uneven ground.
In the morning of 3 June the Dutch national team traveled by train to Brussels together with Dutch officials and some supporters. From there the team travelled by car to the Sport Parc of Royal Uccle Sports. Duting the competition the Dutch team wore orange shorts and a white shirt with the Dutch lion.
Competition format
The competition consisted of 5 events: 100 metres, 800 metres, 4x 100 metres relay, high jump and discus throw. The overall classification is a nation's classification. In the four individual events three athletes of each nation participated. The winner of the event received for the nation 6 points, the number 2 received 5 points, number 3 received 4 points etc. The nation winning the relay event wins 4 points and the other nation received 2 points. For the overall classication all points from each country are added together.
Entrants
Twelve Dutch athlethes and eleven Belgian athletes were selected by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation and Royal Belgian Athletics League and announced ahead of the competition.
The Dutch Annie de Jong-Zondervan was reserve for the 4x 100 metres relay event but didn't compete.
The competition had Dutch and Belgian jury members including D. J. de Vries, J. M. Hardeman and W. Boer.
Competition
800 metres
The competition started with the 800 metres event. The Belgian Ina Degrande won the race, 10 metres ahead of the the Dutch Jo Mallon. Mallon's performance was praised by the Dutch press. Agaath van Noort did not performed as expected, as she because she was not fit. Out of competition, the Dutch woman Jeanne van Kesteren who lived in Belgium finished second in a time of 2 minues and 46.3 seconds. Van Kesteren was invited for the international competition later the year in Germany and became a reserve athlete for the Netherlands at the 1928 Summer Olympics. The Netherlands won the 800 metres with 13 points, with Belgium scoring 8 points.
100 metres
The second event was the 100 metres. There were two times a false starts and the starting pistol faltered a few times. Bets ter Horst won the event in a new Dutch national record with a time of 13 seconds. The other two Dutch women finished second and third place. The Dutch former record holder Nettie Grooss finished in third place as she had a bad start, due to the false starts and faltering starter pistol.
High jump
The high jump was won by Lien Gisolf in new world. With a jump over 1.582 metres she beated the old record of Green of 1.55 metres.
Discus throw
The duscus throw event was won by the Belgian Jenny Toitgans in a new Belgian record of 30.18 metres. The Dutch women Lena Michaelis also set a new national record with 26.83 metres. The former official Dutch record was of Martha Kolthoff with 23.84 metres with unrecognized throws of Nici Mur (24.11 metres) and L. Dekens (26.73 metres).
4x 100 metres relay
After the Dutch women finished first, second and third in the 100 metres event, the 4x 100 metres relay was according to the Dutch media "obviously" won by the Dutch team. The Dutch team set a time of 55 seconds, finishing 10 metres ahead of the Belgian team.
Overall classification
References
Women's athletics
Sport in the Netherlands
Sport in Belgium
1928 in sports
1928 in Europe