Papendal Sports Centre
Over the past ten years, the Papendal Sports Centre has grown Papendal It has grown into one of the largest innovative sports centres in the world. With all its facilities, it accommodates more than half of the Netherlands’ talented young athletes and elite sportspeople. The specialised nutrition it developed for elite sportspeople is now also proving to be applicable in the healthcare sector.
Papendallaan 9, 6816 VD Arnhem
+31 026 483 4555Food innovation
Within the top centre Eat2Move, a collaboration with various partners including Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and Friesland Campina, Sports Centre Papendal developed nutrition for top athletes to achieve optimal protein and carbohydrate recovery. It is now looking at how this nutrition can also be used in healthcare, as patients benefit greatly from it during their recovery.
Director Jochem Schellens: "That's an automatic development that you go through when you have so many athletes running around, being a great place to do research, and being a breeding ground for new ideas."
Connection with the region made Papendal great
"I am proud of the development we have gone through in the past ten years. We grew from zero people training here to 550, we revamped the entire park, built accommodations and renovated the hotel."
The centre very deliberately sought a connection with the city of Arnhem and the province of Gelderland. "We do nutrition awareness workshops at schools, we give advice on strength training, lifeskill coaching, work together with Vitesse. That's how we try to be ín the city and province. Conversely, the municipality and province invested in the Arnhemhal, because of the capacity we gained as a result, we grew into the centre we are today."