A huge disappointment for the Belgian Marten van Riel: just after he received his wildcard for the PTO Asian open, he has to cancel his participation. Van Riel experienced a hard crash on the bike, broke his shoulder blade and bruised five ribs. “Those 5 bruised ribs hurt a lot, but mentally it hurts even harder”, he told to Belgian website 3athlon.be.
“I had deliberately chosen not to participate in the Olympic test event because I have been planning for a long time to slowly start making that step towards the Long Distance. I had therefore chosen to go for the PTO triathlons in August and not for the test event in Paris. I’m going to be honest: this hurts like hell right now, especially mentally. It hurts a lot physically as well, especially those bruised ribs, but mentally this is very difficult at the moment.”
