A loaded weekend for our athletes, with finally the European Ironman races kicking off!
After last week’s race in Frankfurt with splendid results for Steven, Jeffrey and Niels the confidence among our athletes was high. I was confident about our athletes throughout the last 1,5year. Training is key, race output is a small % of the essence for endurance athletes. If they are cyclists, triathletes, runners, swimmers…training is key.
Balanced training is key.

Today Ironman Vichy for Tony, Kurt, Jurgen and Tim! Ironman Denmark for Bart and Wi(lle)m (Danish nationality for 1day).

A good swimming start for all of our athletes.
With swimming times of 57′, 59′, 1h03, 1h05, 1h06 and 1h24′ our athletes were in front of the race quite soon.
Tim and Tony rode similar paces on the bike and moved up strongly in their age group, picking up 2nd and 3rd position at the end of the bike course!

Jurgen made and makes huge steps as an athlete, likewise Tony and Tim not racing many races but well planned throughout the season in prep towards the A-races. This pays off very well and Jurgen enters the top 15 in his AG during this tough bike course. Hilly and a bit technical, 2combinations our strong bikers like a lot.

Kurt from his side paces wisely on the hills and moves up after his swim effort!

In Kopenhagen Bart takes back Wim in the beginning of the bike and both athletes could start managing their own race. Both athletes had several experiences in overloading during the bike course. This time plans were very clear, pace correctly and wait to push until the very final of the run.

Tony and Tim were found in 1st and 2nd position in their AG very soon on the run course!
Tony has been running several IM runs between 3h05 an 3h15. Today, after a very tough course all was possible. Knowing he ran in 2nd position gave wings to him, and also Tim became the runner he wanted to be!
With the distances moving up Tony was making a bigger gap on most athletes, but was getting closely followed by a French athlete, who ran a 2h51′ in Vichy! At the finishline Tony is the final winner with a 9″ advantage!

Excellent job to be on top of the podium for the first time in an Ironman! His 3 Ironman world championships qualification!
Tony is an athlete not to underestimate. His resume is getting quite big and deserves big respect being an amateur athlete! But hey, then again…next race everybody is equal again at the startingline.


Tim on the other hand runs a 3h24′ marathon and takes 5th in this AG! A very consistent race and waiting for a possible Slot for the Ironman world championships!

With Javier, Vadim, Steven, Tony and maybe Tim/Jeffrey our athletes are astonishing race after race! These athletes head to Kona already. This is very nice to see, because we also notice a serious development of our mature and younger athletes!
And why wouldn’t there be even more athletes getting close to joining the World championships!

Another athlete that amazes himself in Vichy is Jurgen!
With a 3h30 run off the bike he takes 13th in his AG after 10h19′ of racing!
Kurt finishes a bit later, and finishes his toughest Ironmanrace so far, satisfaction was higher than the suffering. Good job!

In Kopenhagen the athletes have a slightly faster bike course and Bart was aiming for his fastest IM race ever!
He realized this after a perfectly paced race, never going outside the planned zones and finishing in 10h36′. He had just enough time to recover a bit and see Wim crossing the finishline after 11h35′!

Bart and Wim having excellent racing conditions in Kopenhagen, Denmark. If you pace correctly, a smile is always possible.

In Belgium the national championships Half distance triathlon were held in Menen!
A very windy race in which hard bikers could unleash their legs!

Dimi, Alexander, Christophe, Georg, Michael, Emiel, Frederick and Raymond raced in this national championship!
All 5 strong bikers and putting down a result to be happy about!
Christophe heading to Ironman Italy in September, Raymond heading to Ironman Mallorca in October!

Half triathlon national champs in Menen today! An excellent race for hard bikers or lead up race to autumn Ironman races!


In cycling our riders were heading to the national Elite championships today!
Lars VC tried to join the breakaway but missed it with a little bit of uncertainty because of the wet roads, Dries from his side felt great and missed the breakaway because of the movement in the peloton. In chase he tried to pick up this breakaway and placed himself 12th in the pelotonsprint, finishing 23rd.


In France Agglo Tour (Elite Nationale) was held this weekend, strong race of Lars yesterday already. This morning a 8,3km hilly TT was good for a 373NP performance – 68kg. This put him in a good position for a strong GC with a strong performance in the queen stage later today! And so he did, finishing in the 1st group he moved up to 18th in GC in this high level race!
Up next for Lars are Pro stage races Flanders Tomorrow Tour (Belgium) and Tour de Moselle (France)!

Train smart, perform better!

Jesse