The upcoming weekend, Belgium’s Marten van Riel was supposed to take part in the European Championships Triathlon in Munich, but that won’t go ahead for him, as Van Riel struggles with a serious injury. “Those who saw my long rides on Strava might have been suspecting something”, Van Riel starts off his update. “Unfortunately, my fall in Leeds (at the WTCS race in June, ed.) left a bigger mark than expected/hoped.”
Van Riel struggled to run for seven weeks, and after that, things only got worse. “After seven weeks of running with pain in my ankle, last week I started developing sharper pain. An MRI revealed bone edema in my talus (ankle bone). A couple of weeks without running now, and then we will have to evaluate how it progresses”, he explains.
“The season was already not going how I wanted at all, and this just adds to that disappointment. The only thing I can do now is use this period to create a stronger me than ever. Wout van Aert (the famous Belgian cyclist, ed.) bike mode has already been activated”, Van Riel says, referring to the 24 hours he spent in the saddle last week.
