Photos of gold medal winner Sven Kramer dominate the front pages of just about all the papers today.

Sven skated a record-breaking 5-kilometre race (in 6 minutes, 14.60 seconds), watched by his parents, girlfriend hockey player Naomi van As (gold medal winner in Beijing), Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his family and 5.3 million television viewers back home, according to AD.

Today’s de Volkskrant works out that it’s the 100th Dutch Olympic medal ever. But the historical significance of the moment was lost on the favourite Friesian (Sven is from the province of Friesland, famous for its ice athletes) speed skater as he jumped up into the stands to hug his parents and girlfriend. The overriding emotion was actually one of relief. AD quotes the 23-year-old “There was huge pressure from Holland.” Trouw points out that when you are as good as Kramer, winning isn’t great. It’s just a relief that you didn’t get beaten.

The star skater only stayed 15 minutes at the Dutch supporters ‘home’, Holland House, to celebrate his victory, writes de Volkskrant. He threw a cardboard gold medal into the crowd and went home early and sober, his mind already on the 101st and 102nd medals (10km and team pursuit).

Birth of blood stem cells filmed
Scientists at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam have filmed the birth of a blood stem cell, reports Trouw. In the science journal, Nature, the Dutch researchers report that blood stem cells originate in the aorta, when two or three cells split from an artery wall. The cells travel to the liver, where they multiply, and then into the bone marrow. The blood stem cells have to last a lifetime, as this is the only time they are produced.

The film was made by placing advanced video equipment in the living tissue of a mouse embryo. The journey only takes two hours and is likely to be similar in humans.

The find could have huge consequences for patients with blood diseases, such as leukaemia, in the future. Now they are given bone marrow transplants, but this can be risky as the donor cells sometimes attack the patient’s own cells. The discovery brings scientists closer to reproducing a patient’s own blood stem cells.

In the same edition of Nature US scientists claim ‘the perfect match’ can be easily made from the patient’s own tissue. The Dutch researchers don’t go quite as far as that. Head researcher Catherine Robin says, “We have a long way to go.”

Local politicians irritated by national leaders
With the local elections coming up in March, the political campaigns are hotting up in the Netherlands. But local politicians are irritated by the way their campaigns are being hijacked by national political leaders, writes de Volkskrant.

The media aren’t helping by organising televised and radio debates featuring MPs and ministers. One local politician even complained to Dutch public broadcaster NOS, “The arrogance of the national parties is enormous. The established political parties are losing more and more support to local parties.”

But pollster Maurice de Hond points out that 80 percent of people decide who to vote for on the basis of national politics.

Before the fall of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s previous cabinets, local elections were held just a few months ahead of a general election and national politicians kept well away. Now the local elections are being seen as interim polls for or against the cabinet. So, party leaders have hit the campaign trail.

But left to themselves, local politicians can be prone to blunders it seems. AD reports that in the province of Drenthe, the local conservative VVD party used an illustration based on a naked photograph of former model and France’s first lady, Carla Bruni, for its campaign poster. To illustrate how police funding is being cut, the text reads, “Don’t ‘strip’ the police. Vote VVD.” In the drawing, a naked woman, wearing only a police cap, holds her hands in front of her crotch. The original photograph with Carla Bruni in the same pose is placed next to the illustration.

Carnival time in the freezing cold
It is carnival time in the southern, mainly Roman Catholic, Netherlands. Revellers have been warned to dress up warm and party inside. But carnival is an outdoor event, and the warnings have been ignored. De Telegraaf points out “Alcohol doesn’t freeze”. Unfortunately the carnival floats in the city of Maastricht had to stay in the garage as police judged the roads too icy for the parade.

Hospital accident and emergency departments have been busy with festively clad victims of too much drink and falls on slippery pavements.

Trouw reports that the event has gone relatively well with only a few arrests. Any trouble that has occurred has been blamed on the “Hollanders” from the northwest of the country who don’t understand what carnival is about, writes AD.  In Breda, five Rotterdammers (Hollanders, of course) were arrested for throwing bicycles. They had obviously ignored the stickers “Rotterdammer Free Zone”.

Venlo tried to keep out troublemakers from outside by issuing wristbands this year. To little effect, writes De Telegraaf, but the low temperatures did help “eliminate the weaker brothers and leave the true carnival-goers.”

Dutch tourist injured in Rio
A newly wed Dutch couple on honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro, who had planned their trip so that it would coincide with the famous carnival there, have been injured in a mugging incident.

De Telegraaf writes they were on their way to see the city’s famous statue of Christ, when a young mugger grabbed the bride’s bag. When the groom intervened he was shot three times. She was beaten around the head. Luckily the bride is a nurse and they were close to a hospital. He is now recovering in hospital but will not be fit enough to return to the Netherlands for a couple of weeks.

The bag is gone, but as the father of the groom put it. “You can replace possessions.”