T100 World Champion Marten Van Riel has warned fans that his focus ahead of his early-season race double-header is to qualify for the IRONMAN World Championships in Nice in September.
The Belgian star is set to compete in just his second full-distance race on Sunday, March 30 at IRONMAN South Africa – just seven days before the T100 Triathlon World Tour opener in Singapore on Sunday, April 6.
The 32-year-old is yet to qualify for this season’s full-distance showcase in France having finished seventh at IRONMAN Cozumel in November due to a bike crash when leading the race.
T100 Singapore sacrifice
On his YouTube channel, the PTO world number one detailed his current plans for the 2025 season, and discussed his reasoning for completing races in back-to-back weekends.
“The plan for 2025 was an interesting puzzle to put together because I want to do T100 Triathlon World Tour and IRONMAN World Championships in Nice,” Van Riel admitted.
“Obviously after last year in Cozumel where I had the crash it means I still need to qualify, so I had to fit in at least one full-distance race.”
“I chose IRONMAN South Africa. I think that was the best choice in the end, I will have to do T100 Singapore one week later – which is going to be very hard to back up a hopefully good performance from South Africa.
“It was the best choice because otherwise I’d have to do an IRONMAN later on in the season, like maybe somewhere in June, which is a very important period for the T100 Series because there is three races. I’m maybe sacrificing one T100 event now.”
All eyes on June
Following his hopeful IRONMAN qualification in South Africa, Van Riel will turn his full attention to the T100 Series. A training camp with two IRONMAN World Champions in the Spanish mountains is the plan ahead of a trifecta of T100 races in June.
“I hope with this schedule I keep both options open, so we are starting IRONMAN South Africa, T100 Singapore, then I am going to go on an altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain to visit my friends Kristian (Blummenfelt) and Gustav (Iden).
“Then I will do all T100 events in June – San Francisco, Vancouver and French Riviera. Then I’ll do another training block at altitude again, and then hopefully, if I am qualified, Nice World Championships then.”
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