Marten Van Riel secured his first full-distance IRONMAN win, set a pair of new Lake Placid records and jumped 19 places in the Pro Series rankings to sit in second spot behind Kristian Blummenfelt – before then setting his sights on Kona success.
The Belgian secured a dominant start-to-finish victory on Sunday after keeping the dogged Matthew Marquardt at bay in a race which saw both men beat the course best set by the American when he won last year.
Van Riel, who finished second behind Norwegian Blummenfelt at Texas earlier this season, managed to go one better this time as he took control of the swim, extended his advantage on the bike and then held off Marquardt to take the tape.
A day of firsts and record performances
On a day of firsts in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, the women’s race winner was also recording a debut win, with Canadian Paula Findlay securing the victory, having never before competed at a full-distance IRONMAN.
Both will now head to Kona with confidence that they can compete with the very best, with Van Riel accepting that while the records were nice, there was a much bigger goal on his mind.
“It’s always a nice bonus to set new records, but the most important thing is beating everyone on the day, because I think Matthew also beat his own course record,” he said. “Matthew really made me work for it. I had a really rough patch at the end of the bike and then at the start of the run, and I started running quite fast, and Matthew was catching up, and I was really, like, ‘What am I going to have to do today to beat this guy?’.
“The Pro Series has obviously been a big side goal, but the most important thing for me now is to do well in the two championships, and especially in Kona; that has always been my big dream, and with that will come, hopefully, a good Pro Series result, and I’m really good in the standings now, so that’s obviously a fun extra thing.”
Findlay just happy to have finished
Findlay may not have the same level of ambition heading over to the Big Island, but she will certainly have gained a great deal of confidence from a debut long-distance display that showed skill, determination and a whole lot of courage.
Revealing that she had taken advice from many of her fellow athletes, including the likes of Kat Matthews, she admitted that just being able to say that she finished the race would have been good enough for her as she set off in the early hours.
“I’m really proud to finish, regardless of the result. I mean, it’s amazing to win, but that was so hard,” she said. “And I knew it was going to be hard, but man, it was just like one foot in front of the other, a death march.
“The first half felt really good, and my cadence was up. I felt relaxed. I felt like I was running well. But it fell apart a little bit in the last 10K, which I expected it would. So I was really just focusing on getting to the next aid station, getting to the next person in front of me, thinking about little goals like that.
‘I couldn’t even fathom getting to the end’
“So that helped me get to the end, but I honestly didn’t know I was going to win until I literally crossed the line because I thought I could start walking at any moment.
“It always feels really special to win races, but to do it in a race this long? When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t even fathom getting to the end, so to get to the end pretty fast with the win is just kind of mind-blowing.”
Marquardt finished second in the men’s race ahead of Ben Kanute (USA) in third, while Spain’s Marta Sanchez and America’s Rachel Zilinskas rounded out the podium for the women.
Read more: For a full report of the men’s race, click HERE.
Read more: For a full report of the women’s race, click HERE.
