Broersen is a member of the Dutch national combined events squad and trains at the Olympic Training centre in Papendal in the Netherlands since 2009. Because she was good in three essential events – 100 metres hurdles, high jump and the javelin throw – she was advised to specialize in the heptathlon,[1] despite her fear for the 800 metres.[2]
Nadine Broersen winning the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot
On March 7, 2014, Broersen won gold at the World Indoor championships in Sopot (Poland) in the indoor pentathlon, improving the national record of Karin Ruckstuhl with a score of 4830 points.[2] On the way to that result she also improved the national indoor record in the high jump, with a height of 1.93m.[2] That year she finished 4th at Gotzis, scoring 6536 points, which would have been a Dutch record, had Schippers not finished nine points ahead.[6]
She set her personal best at 6539 points, winning the heptathlon in Torun (Poland) in July 2014, just six points short of the national record set in March earlier that year by Schippers at Gotzis.[7] Later that year she won silver at the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich (Switzerland) in the heptathlon behind France's Antoinette Nana Djimou,[8] breaking the outdoor national record in the high jump with 1.94m. That year she won the 2014 IAAF Combined Events Challenge.[9]
In 2016, everything was focused on the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).[14] At the 2016 European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam in her home country, Broersen, who moved from ninth on the first day to fourth after winning the long jump and coming third in the javelin, but was unable to run the final 800 metres event due to an illness.[15][16] Her teammate Anouk Vetter won the heptathlon event with a new national record of 6626 points.[17] At the 2016 Summer Olympics she finished in a disappointing 13th place. Nevertheless, she made up the 2016 season by winning the heptathlon at the Décastar in Talence (France).[18]
Injuries and comeback
The 2017 season started with a 5th place at the 2017 European Athletics Indoor Championships pentathlon, but she had to abandon at the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis, sparing her ankle.[19] At the World Championships heptathlon in London she had to abandon the event due to a hamstring injury, incurred at the long jump event.[20] In Talence that year she failed to record a legal leap in the long jump and subsequently dropped out; the third incomplete heptathlon of the season.[21]
In 2018 she could barely compete after she had torn the back cruciate ligament from her knee in November 2017 and a long rehabilitation followed.[22] The 2019 season was the year of a comeback, despite an hamstring injury at national indoor pentathlon championship in February.[23] At the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis she finished 7th, and a month late she finished third at the Mehrkampf-Meeting Ratingen.[24] At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha she finished sixth.[25]
