A weekend to remember with our athletes going strong, going strong from January 1st till December 31st! Last weekend of August and a big racing weekend for our cyclists and triathletes!
The weekend started perfect with one of our cyclists who went in the breakaway in ‘La Velomediane’. After 165k Anthony took 3rd place in this tough Ardennes cycling race.!
Anthony is doing a massive season (again)! Taking enough rest, pushing enough load at the right time results in performance on D-Days.
With a month to go there’s still something left in his tank this season!
Anthony 3rd in La Velomediane
In Zoetermeer (Holland) the best MTB’riders of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg raced eachother in another stage of the Beneluxcup. For Wim a race to defend his 2nd place in the GC. Finishing 4th he defends his 2nd spot and is now ready to attack the Flemish championships.
Wim 2nd in Beneluxcup and currently 1st in Flemish Cup!
Austria is Anil’s 2nd homeground and for that he raced 70.3 Zell-Am-See today, finishing his first 70.3. Leading up to…
Borne (Netherlands) was racing territory for the duathletes. Current Dutch long distance champion Alexander Picard won the race, Jan got third only a few seconds away from 2nd position!. Who had a first short taper off phase after a big block of training leading up to the World Championships Duathlon of next weekin Switzerland!
Jan 3rd in one of his favourite sprintraces in the Netherlands!
In Vichy (France) our triathletes raced the 70.3 race in warm conditions but enjoyed it. Our oldest athlete finished the race as he hoped for and Kenneth put down 4h44′ in his 1st half triathlon. This race was lead-up event towards the full Ironman event on sunday!
With 2 athletes in this race we were looking forward to it!
Bert and Bart went into this Ironman with different expectations. Bert was chasing a good race ànd a slot to qualify for Kona 2018, Bart was chasing a sub11!
The non-wetsuit swim didn’t play in Bart’s cards as swimming is not his favourite discipline. But for Bert, steady over the 3 disciplines and a good swimmer, this could make an early gap. And so it went. Very early in the race Bert was in the front of the field. He got out of T2 in 5th position after a 56′ swim. With a rolling start, you don’t really have a view on the athletes who start later in the bunch. Rolling starts are definitely becoming a solution for the drafting. But also may play another tactical role in the future, more about this in a later blog. For Bert this race was also a revenge race for Challenge Poznan, where he was sent in the wrong direction in2nd position.
The hard training period he had last months would pay off…that was the purpose.
Bert didn’t miss the start on the bike and moved up to 2nd position after a couple of kilometers into the bikecourse.
With a low extensive steady HR and an avg speed of +/-40km/h Bert could finish the bikecourse with quite fresh legs. Ready for a good run under the sun. With 36°C a hot day in France, hoping heat wouldn’t affect performance too much.
Putting down the bike 2nd overall in T2 gave wings to Bert and soon he moved up towards 1st overall position! Behind him, a few athletes (of which former PRO Bruno Clerbout – multiple Ironman top5 results) who started the race a bit later in the bunch were chasing Bert and the livetracker and positions in the race were a bit misleading.
Halfway the bikecourse it was clear quite some athletes were getting close and were catching up on him. Clerbout took the lead, to never give it back again and crossed the finishline of an IM first for the first time in his career.
Bert from his side had a good run, a steady run and was capable after losing his 2nd place to fight himself back into the race for silver and took it with style! 2nd place in 8h45′!
With a 3h15′ run Bert paces towards the 2nd place in Vichy, qualifying Kona happens after hard work!
Bert is our 3rd AG athlete in 1year who finishes in 8h45 or faster in an Ironman!
For him this also means he has his qualification to Hawaï 18 in the pocket! And I am very curious to see which one of our athletes could already join him…let’s see ;-)!
A challenging next 2weeks for Bert despite his rocket-race, within 2 weeks he races the IM70.3 World championships.
The overall podium in Vichy was conquered by Belgians, with Bert as a proud 2nd in 8h45′
A bit later Bart who put down his bike in 5h15 was on schedule for his sub 11 and he did. With a well paced run he finishes in 10h58′! Mission accomplished and 2 weeks of 100% rest coming 😉
Next week our athletes wil race the World Championships duathlon in Zofingen and the Swimrun World Championships in Sweden. Later this week we will present you our athletes heading in to these 2 races!
Ciao and have a cold drink, our day was hot today 😉
Jesse
High performance coaching & Sportsconsultancy Trainingsbegeleiding en coaching Triatlon, Duatlon, Running , Cycling, wielrennen 