Marten Van Riel and His Trek Speed Concept Are Ready to Race Nice 

Marten Van Riel is a racer fans love to watch. Best known for bringing his short-course speed and flare to T100 racing, the 32-year-old Belgian Olympian is strong in all three disciplines. Nice will be his first world championship and only his third full IRONMAN but, as he proved in South Africa where he was second even after a bad case of food poisoning, he’s sure to bring some fire and flair to his debut.

​​ST: You’ve had a few literal bumps preparing for Nice. How are you recovering from your injuries and how is the rest of training going?

Van Riel: It wasn’t the smoothest run into the race, but now I’m feeling quite good. The ankle has not been any issue since I restarted running. I made really, really quick steps forward and, for instance, I’ve done one 30-kilometer run even. So, I think it’s loaded enough that I feel safe to do a marathon. 

The comeback was starting to look too good, so then I made a little tumble [on the bike] as well on Sunday, a little crash. I have some road rash from that and that’s honestly been a bit annoying, just taking care of the wounds two or three times a day.

My right side started cramping up a bit when I was running the first days after the crash because I was probably moving a little bit differently. So, yeah, not ideal, but I think now it’s all good and the wounds are getting better. I hope they will be completely healed by Sunday because it’s not easy to be in the TT bars otherwise.

It’s your first time racing IRONMAN World Championship and only your third IRONMAN distance race, what are you still learning and figuring out about this distance? 

 It’s my first world champs and I’m actually really, really excited for that. And that’s even the reason why even if I’m not a 100 percent, I’m really excited to race it just to get to know this world championship and see what level all the big guys bring to this race.

I have raced a couple of the best, but separately. I’ve never raced a day like the IRONMAN World Championship where everyone will bring their “A” game. That’s going to be very interesting to see how far I’m off and where I stand now. 

Have you done anything specific in training or to your bike set up to prepare for the bike course?

 I’ve not really done anything specific in training. I’ve done more bike [because of my ankle injury] which, in the end, I think will maybe not be bad. The bike course is probably going to be relatively more important than in a normal IRONMAN because there’s the 12-meter drafting rule–that’s still a bit little to my taste–and I think on this course there’s obviously less drafting. 

I did make a nutrition plan that focuses on trying not to have too much liquid on me at any time because obviously one liter of water is one kilo. So I’m trying to save a bit on that while not obviously compromising my nutrition and that’s been an interesting thing to search out.

I made some new aero bars together with Speedbar that are very light and sleek. So that’s looking really good on a bike as well and saves me a bit of weight.

I did a lot of downhill recces and I actually came in June to the 70.3 race to do a bit of the course so I think I’m prepared. 

What are your thoughts on race strategy and how you think it’s going to play out?

For  race strategy, I think for me, the harder the race, the better. If we can get a little bit of a break with a couple of guys in the swim, I hope I will be there. We can just take it from the front and hurt the legs of maybe the little bit less good swimmers like a Kristian, or a Magnus, or guys like that. So, that’s gonna be interesting to see how it plays out–but you can’t speculate too much either, because in the end, there’s so many possible scenarios and you can’t predict how a race is going to go.

How have you grown and changed in the last year?

 I’ve grown and changed as an athlete in the last year. Last year was a bit of a mixed year with the Olympics, my last short course dance that didn’t really go to plan, but then T100 went really, really well and I ended the year on a high as a world champion.

Maybe this year I had a little bit more of a difficult start. I had food poisoning in South Africa and then a very difficult combo, which I put on myself, but I chose to do Singapore the week after and then I went into a training camp which didn’t really go how I wanted. 

I kind of dug myself into a hole, but I think I finally saw there has been a recurring pattern in my career where I put a lot of value on who I am as an athlete and maybe not as much on who I am as a person. When it’s going well in the sport, I am mentally doing really well; but when it’s not going well in my sport, when I’m sick or when I’m injured or whatever, I can sink really deep and really close myself off. Just realizing that and communicating that to some people, and even just putting that out in the world, has already helped me. It’s something I’m trying to really develop in myself because it’s going to be important to my career if I want to have more years at this top level.

Van Riel’s Full Race Day Set Up

• Bike: Trek Speed Concept SLR
• TT bars: Speedbar
• Wheels: Hed Vanquish pro 84mm front wheel, Hed Vanquish pro disc wheel
• Tyres: GP 5000 TT 28mm – 65psi
• Crank length: 170mm
• Group set: Sram Red Etap 58 one by – 10-36 cassette
• Saddle: Bontrager Hilo Pro saddle
• Pedals: Look Keo blade carbon ceramic
• Helmet: Rudy Project Wing Dream
• Garmin: Forerunner 970 XT
• Bike Garmin: Edge 840
• Cap: Ultracooltech Glacier hHat x Redbull
• Running shoes: Asics metaspeed sky Tokyo
• Socks: Incylence Nice edition
• Trisuit: Santini
• Swimskin: Roka

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