Van Riel faces World Championship fitness battle after revealing injury and mental health concerns

Marten Van Riel is a major doubt for next month’s IRONMAN World Championship after revealing his recent battles with injury and poor mental health.

The 32-year-old Belgian, who was crowned T100 Triathlon World Champion last year, admitted he now faced a race against time in his bid to line up for September’s showdown in Nice.

Van Riel has already experienced success on the French Riviera this season, having won IRONMAN 70.3 Nice in June, but will have to wait a little while before knowing if his body has recovered sufficiently for what promises to be a significantly tougher challenge.

Tough time

Posting on his Instagram account, the athlete explained his recent struggles with both a written statement and a short video.

He wrote: “Not the news I wanted to give 😟. I am in my 4th week of not running now after I got a serious ankle sprain. And I was already not feeling like myself before that 🤕.

“Finally I am making a little bit of progress, so hopefully I can start building some load on my ankle soon 🤞. Whatever happens in the next weeks I’ll take it day by day, focusing on improving myself and my ankle.

“I haven’t given up on IM World Champs in Nice but I know everything will have to go perfect to even make the start line. So let’s give it my best shot 👊.”

Mental health battle

His video message shed a little more light on the battle for both mental and physical fitness as he opened up with an explanation to his followers on why he had not posted any messages for a while.

“Things have not been going how I want,” he said. “I’ve been struggling a little bit with my mental health, and that often translates in not posting much on Instagram and just not communicating much in general, and then unfortunately, three weeks ago, I twisted my ankle and did some internal damage there, so I haven’t been able to run since.

“It has honestly been a very frustrating process. I still have quite a lot of pain when I walk, so obviously running is not on the cards right now. And that’s pretty difficult with Nice coming closer and closer now.

“I’m trying everything, working hard with the physio, I’m concentrating a bit more on the bike and a swim, but we’ll have to see in the next weeks whether competing in Nice will be possible. So I’m going to try everything.”

Van Riel, who booked his spot in Nice with an impressive second-placed finish at the IRONMAN African Championship in South Africa earlier this season, became the first T100 World Champion in 2024, finishing second once and recording three wins over the course of the season, including the Grand Final in Dubai.

Triathlon community rallies round

And soon after his post there was plenty of support for him from his peers.

His good friend Sam Laidlow, who won the IRONMAN World Championship the last time it was held in Nice in 2023 and has roared back to form in recent weeks after a challenging start to 2025, said: “You got this ledgy 🙏🏼”

And Sam Long, who was on hand to watch Hayden Wilde complete one of the all-time great sporting comebacks at T100 London over the weekend, posted: “Amazing comebacks have been the thing right now – so maybe means you’ll do even better at Nice!”

There was plenty of other encouragement too and here at TRI247 we wish Marten all the best.