- Sports
- 02/02/2026
Sports spotlight | Nayade’s favorite number is 61
TU/e boasts 38 student sports clubs. At the student sports centre SSC, you can game, jump, run, cycle, row, fly, shoot, hang, play chess, surf, push, and plenty more. Cursor invites each club to introduce itself—starting with a simple question: what’s your favourite number?
Warming-up
What makes ESWZV Nayade distinctive is that it brings together two completely different disciplines: water polo and swimming. The contrast is striking. Water polo is a team sport defined by chaos, tactics, interaction, and improvisation.
Competitive swimming is a sport for individual athletes, which comes down to control, precision, and repetition. What the disciplines have in common, is that they both take place in a large pool of water.
Chair Tristan Plomp—any joke about his name in combination with his sport is probably not new to him—plays in Men’s 1 and studies Automotive at Fontys. For him, the social side of Nayade is what matters most. “I see our swimming club as a social club where members also do sports. Every new member is welcomed with open arms; I experienced that myself two years ago.”
“After every training or match, we go to the cafeteria for a drink, and special events often end at the Nayade house. Eight men and three women live there together and have built a unique atmosphere.”
Plomp recalls the annual toep (a card game) tournament at the Nayade house. At eight tables spread across four rooms, (former) housemates, board members, and the most active members compete for a rotating trophy.
The house is also home to mascot Saskia: a dressed-up Manneken Pis doll. She wears a blue Nayade shirt and a water polo cap with the number 61 on it—Nayade’s favorite number. “Because 1961 is our founding year. We’re the oldest student swimming and water polo association in the Netherlands,” the chair says proudly.
Scores
- The training pool at SSC is 25 meters long and has 6 lanes
- 138 swimmers at Nayade
- 74 water polo players at Nayade
- A Men’s 1 water polo match lasts 4 × 7 minutes
- At Women’s 1, a match lasts 4 × 6 minutes
- At Men’s 2 and Women’s 2, a match lasts 4 × 5 minutes
- The 5th period (at the bar) is the most fun
- 7 players in the water polo field
- 2 referees per water polo match, appointed by the KNZB
- The shot clock runs for 28 seconds
- The association is 65 years old
- A pitcher of beer at SSC costs 13 euros and yields 6 to 7 beers
- The club drink, Bokma jonge jenever, contains 35 percent alcohol
- May 14 is Vlaballen Day and Nayade’s birthday
- 4 swimming competitions per year
Analyses
Every year on May 14, Nayadians want to play vlaballen. They head outdoors—preferably to a forest with a lake nearby—because Team Vla (custard) and Team Yogurt like to rinse off after the game. The contest is about capturing a flag. Defending the flag involves throwing vla or yogurt.
Plomp: “Who actually captures the flag is secondary; in reality, both teams lose. But it’s absolutely hilarious.”
Student swimmers from across the Netherlands compete against each other in the Dutch Student Swimming Competition (NSZK). Four times a year, they meet at a rotating location to compete in freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly events.
“Such a competition starts on Friday with a pre-drinks get-together. On Saturday, all distances are swum, and after the closing party, it’s done. Sunday is for recovering at home,” says Plomp.
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