He has won numerous Ironman 70.3s, but a full-distance Ironman victory was still missing from Marten van Riel’s otherwise stellar resume. Until today, that is, as the world-class Belgian triathlete just blazed to a fantastic victory at Ironman Lake Placid. In a highly competitive field, Van Riel practically led the race solo from start to finish.
For Van Riel, this victory – his first ever over the classic distance – is a continuation of what is already a phenomenal season; back in April, he finished second at Ironman Texas, and just a month ago, he won Ironman 70.3 Elsinore. Van Riel made his intentions clear right from the swim today, breaking away from the rest of the field alongside Great Britain’s Fraser Minnican. After just over 47 minutes, the two leaders exited the water with a lead of nearly a minute over their closest pursuers, Americans Thomas Gordon and Ben Kanute.
On the bike, Van Riel paid no heed to Minnican’s ambitions. Although the Brit tried hard to stick with him, he couldn’t hold the pace. Within the opening kilometers, the Belgian took a solo lead that he would not relinquish for the rest of the race. Nevertheless, the race remained much tighter than that fact might suggest; even though Van Riel held the lead continuously, his gap on the bike never grew significantly.
Initially, Kanute was the closest pursuer, but a hard-charging Matthew Marquardt overtook his compatriot within the first fifty kilometers, moving into second place to hunt down Van Riel. The gap between the two men constantly hovered between two and three minutes, and in the final kilometers of the bike leg, Marquardt managed to reduce his deficit to just over a minute and a half. By that point, the battle already seemed limited to just these two men; when Trevor Foley and Kanute entered T2 in third and fourth place, they were already more than seven minutes behind.
The suspense remained palpable for at least the first ten kilometers of the marathon, as Marquardt chipped away at the lead, closing the gap to just over a minute. However, that comeback was short-lived. While Van Riel kept running imperturbably, Marquardt began losing time again after the ten-kilometer mark. His pace dropped so rapidly that it quickly became clear Van Riel was well on his way to his first-ever IM victory.
Van Riel won the race in a time of 7:41:57, while Marquardt finished second in 7:46:11. Kanute finished third in 7:58:23.
