Monday, 24 February 2014 - 07:12
Olympic athletes ready to return
The successful Dutch Olympic athletes are set to return to home soil Monday.
The athletes will be accompanied by trainers and coaches, and will arrive from Sochi at around 4 p.m. at the Eelde Groningen Airport. They will then travel by bus to Assen where an inaugural ceremony will take place.
The arrival hall where the athletes will be is not accessible to the public, neither have special pomp and circumstance events been planned. Any spectators will be kept at a distance. When they have landed, the athletes will board buses, taking them to Assen.
A celebratory inauguration will take place in the capital of Drenthe, at around 5:20 p.m. Some ten thousand spectators are expected to come and cheer on the athletes.
The national inauguration is on Tuesday in The Hague. Here, the athletes will be formally received by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima.