He promised he wanted to give it another shot and reigning 70.3 World Champion Jelle Geens has been good to his word by targeting a second IRONMAN this summer, where he will again bid to lock down a cherished Kona slot.

The Belgian star’s full-distance debut at IRONMAN Texas proved a chastening one as he went all in for the win only to hit the wall midway through the marathon and was eventually a DNF.

But taking on board the lessons learned from that and with renewed determination, he has nominated IRONMAN Lake Placid as his revised route to the IRONMAN World Championship in Hawaii.

Last real chance this year

And by the sounds of it the lure of the Big Island even outweighs the prospect of a third successive 70.3 title in terms of this season’s biggest goal.

Speaking on his latest YouTube video, which is embedded below, he explained: “I don’t want to give up on Kona yet. So I’ve decided to do IRONMAN Lake Placid on the 19th of July.

“It seems like it’s a bit of an undulating course, which I think suits me well.

“And timing-wise, I think that one suited the best. I can still do T100 San Francisco and 70.3 Happy Valley to have that racing block. And then we’ll go over to Girona and spend some time there before heading to Lake Placid.”

Another strong field – though maybe not quite to Texas standards – looks likely at Lake Placid as it’s an IRONMAN Pro Series race, with four Kona spots up for grabs for each gender.

It’s actually the penultimate chance before the qualifying window closes – only IRONMAN Kalmar in Sweden on 15 August comes after it and registration for that one has already closed.

Nailing the IRONMAN distance

Geens continued: “We’ll take some of the lessons we’ve learned from Texas into this next building block and I might race a little bit more conservatively there and really go for that Kona slot.

“I definitely also take positives away from the race in Texas. Although I didn’t finish it, I was up there for a long time. And I really feel that with some tweaks in training and probably also the taper, I can nail the distance and I can be up there.

“Winning the 70.3 World Champs for a third time in a row in Nice would be super cool, but I don’t think it adds that much value to my career. Obviously, I’d take it, but I really want to now just focus on winning Kona, and it might take me a while.

“An IRONMAN is a different beast so I don’t want to waste this year in that sense and just go for 70.3 and T100 – I want to give Kona another crack and really want to try and qualify for it in Lake Placid and probably take valuable lessons out of that race too.

“For me, it’s a lot about what motivates me. Nailing the IRONMAN distance is what motivates me now and I really believe that with some tweaks I can be up there and a factor.”