The future is now for triathlon great Vincent Luis as he steps up to middle distances for good at IRONMAN 70.3 Bahrain on Friday.
The 35-year-old French superstar retired from short-course racing earlier this month after a glittering career which brought him two world titles among a host of other big prizes.
Now he has his sights set on starring over longer trips, with middle distance for starters and a potential Challenge Roth bid over the full distance already pencilled in for 2025.
Luis is also not here to make up the numbers, he has his sights set on doing something special – starting on Friday with a bid for the fastest ever time over the 70.3 distance.
That mark is currently held by Belgium’s newly-crowned T100 champion Marten Van Riel – who clocked 3:26:06 when winning IRONMAN 70.3 Dubai in 2022. Now Vincent is aiming to target that on Friday in Bahrain, though of course in triathlon ‘record times’ always come with a health warning as all courses are different.
Vincent Luis targets Van Riel mark
Speaking at the pre-race press conference (watch in full at the bottom of this page), he said: “The field is gonna be really stacked and everyone wants a piece of the cake, I guess. It will be fast racing and I think with the new run course we can go even faster.
“In sport at the minute the times are getting faster and faster. We’ve seen the climbing times at Tour de France getting faster and faster and of course triathlon is the same.
“Technology helps a bit but we also learn new training techniques and we are always learning about the science behind the sport and of course we’re getting faster. So we athletes have to adapt and get better at training
“I still have, somewhere in my head, the fastest time in the world that Marten Van Riel clocked in Dubai a few years ago and I think it would be really good to get as close as we can on Friday.”
Couple goals for Vince and GTB
Friday’s race will also be very special to Vince for another reason – his partner, British superstar Georgia Taylor-Brown, will also toe the line as she makes her debut over long distances. The ultimate couple goal of course is two wins.
“That would obviously be really special. That would be amazing of course and I wish this will be happening on Friday,” Luis admitted.
“I’m going to continue my career into more long-distance races. I’m not sure what Georgia will do in the [next] few years. I know she has some new challenges coming so I’m not sure we will ever step on a start line together [again].
“So it would be good to do that for her first and maybe last long-distance race.”
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