Tag: Ironman Vichy

Ironman Vichy (France) Hans ‘La Machine’ peaks spot on and takes the win! Ironman Denmark 10th AG place for Thibaud!

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Big Ironweekend this weekend, yesterday already we had the 70.3 races in Vichy(Fr) and the full Ironman in Kalmar, Sweden! With Raymond taking the AG win in Sweden the weekend started excellent for our athletes! Raymond added a 12th Kona qualification for 2022. Some of our athletes will not take their qualifier slot, but will choose for other challenging races.

Today Ironman started with the races in which athletes can qualify for the 2023 Ironman World champs in Kona, Hawaii! Our athletes were ready to blow the juice out their legs and turn it into speed in Vichy (France) and Kopenhagen (Denmark).

Hans solo on the bike in Ironman Vichy – leading the race untill the finishline!



In Vichy our athletes got a tough course ahead of them, which all 3 (Sander, Sven and Hans) like a lot.
In the first 1/4of the bikecourse the race was very dense, gaps between athletes were rather small. But once the first hills came up the gaps got bigger. Hans became leader in his AG. Sander and Sven started moving up at this point. Unfortunately after 3/4 into the race Sven got mechanical problems with his Di2 and could only shift between 53*12 and 39*12 starting from that point. A bummer for an athlete who had a perfect preparation.

Bad luck for Sven with mechanicals and stomach problems on the bike!


Once the athletes passed halfway the bikecourse it became clear that gaps became bigger and Hans went towards the lead of the overall race. A gap that he made bigger in the last part of the bikecourse. This by pacing well and staying consistent throughout the bike effort.

Sander with a 3h27′ marathon in Ironman Vichy – finishing 30th in his AG


After 180K bikes could go in T2 and the first steps on the marathon course were made!
42K ahead, being at the lead. It can be stressful or it can give wings. Hans remained calm and did what he had to do, focussing on his own race and see what happens 40K later.

Hans wins Ironman Vichy 2022, an exceptional performance of the Belgian ‘La Machine’



A perfect run, on the right moment at the right place made Hans run his marathon in 3h06′ and finish 26″ ahead of the fast French runner Noblet. A strong race of the French athlete but in the end the winner takes it all! Today the winner is Hans, a performance to cherish! He joins a list of Belgian Ironmanwinners that’s not too large! Great job!


Sven suffered on the bike with his mechanical problems on a demanding course, his legs surely were affected by this. But despite this he kept strong and his goal was still 42K ahead! Those 42K he still managed to run in 3h25′ and this brought him to 24th AG position!
He was closely followed by Sander who finished 3′ later in 30th AG position!


295NP for Hans to put the best bike split in France, followed by a 3h06′ marathon!
Hans celebrating the win of Ironman Vichy 2022

In Denmark Thibaud (Switzerland), Frédéric (Belgium) and Anil (Belgium) took a very good start!

Thibaud came out of the water after 54′, Frédéric in 57′ and Anil in his first Ironman effort in 80′.
All 3 athletes performed well during today’s swim!
On the bike pacing was meant to be perfect and so it went! We saw very strong bike splits of Thibaud and Frédéric without overusing and staying in the right pacing zone. Thibaud came off the bike in 20th position, Frédéric in 22nd position.

Thibaud has a good run in his legs and already showed in Cozumel 2021 what he’s capable of!
Today he moved up from 20th to 10th position in the run with a 3h21′ run. Another AG top 10 for him today. Finishing in 9h07′, while Frédéric finishes just above 10h in 10h02′!

Anil managed his first Ironman in 13h15, in the end it’s not only the fastest one who gains respect by performance in triathlon! Good job!

Train smart perform better,


Jesse




Our athletes all did a progressive race today, in Vichy all our athletes ran sub 3h30 on the marathon course

Ironman Vichy (France) – Ironman Kopenhagen (Denmark) – Agglo Tour (France) – National elite champs cycling and Half distance triathlon

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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.

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Silence and focus for Tony before the start, at the starting line all 2500athletes are equal. Nobody is to underestimate.

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!

Geen beschrijving beschikbaar.
Wim and Bart first met on one of our winter group sessions, became good friends and now race together regularly, all relaxed at the start in Denmark

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.

Tony riding the climbs around Vichy, moving up to 15th in GC and 1st in his AG at the finishline!
A tough racecourse in Vichy and regularly pacing on the bike made it work for Tim! Dropping off the bike 2nd in T2!


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

Kan een afbeelding zijn van Kurt Dhaenens, staan en buitenshuis
Kurt starting the run course after a well managed bike 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!


Tony 1st (15th overall) – Tim 2nd in Vichy

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!

Jurgen with a 3h30 run off the bike, keeping his place after the bike and finishing 13th in his Ag!


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)!



Next week our athletes are heading to Ironman Hamburg, Germany, the Masters UCI cycling world championships in Austria, La Velomediane and much more 😉



Train smart, perform better!

Jesse

Hammers on the performance block! Ironman Vichy (France) and more!

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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!

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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 ME

Wim 2nd in Beneluxcup and currently 1st in Flemish Cup!

 

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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!

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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 bike

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′!

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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.

Bert Verbeke

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

The heat became fire!

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On friday and saturday our athletes performed already astonishing, I had that little feeling that on sunday our athletes wouldn’t perform less. And so it was!

Jan started his crosstriathlon early that day (Watrissart-France) ,in his first triseason it’s clear this discipline is something that will fit him as the best. A good technique, strong cyclist and fast off-bike runner as he is, he got 2nd overall! For Joeri the race ended with a broken chain and alternative training!

Jan G

The looks of a rockstar, but the legs of sportsstar, Jan on his first overall crosstri-podium!

In Viersel(Belgium) it was Tony who entered the densified field of the quarter triathlon. With specialists as Goetschouwers, Jammaer,…we knew the swim would be important on a totally flat racecourse with almost no turning…just pushing. Tony did a good swim, and moved up a lot on the bike followed by a top8 runsplit he managed 11th overall in the end!

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Former duathlete Tony gets 11th in a fast 1/4triathlon with a high level of athletes at the starting line.

In France Séb did the Castleseries Half Iron in Chantilly, this was a top off of a big trainingperiod towards the toughest Irondistancerace in Europe, the Evergreen Triathlon in and around Chamonix. Food for challengers!

A bit further away in France the Ironman athletes showed determination! Michael reached the finishline in this Ironman with a non-wetsuit ! But it was Alex, who astonished. Alex came with us after an Ironman Frankfurt where need more than 13h to get to the finisline!

1year later he realises a great effort with a magnificent swim and a bik and run in which he kept his spot in the overal field! One day Alex will swim a sub 50′ IMswim, not sure about this…but very sure!

Alex

Alex cuts off 2h30 of his Ironmanrace-time and now enters among the top15%, a big step forward!

6years I never would have thought I could be  celebrating 40 (!) wins with an athlete, today it became reality! Tom “deamon on  the bike” Vandenbussche  won the individual time  trial in Torhout and is having a supersummer! 2wins in 1 weekend is double champagne for breakfast tomorrow!  Super proud to work with this athlete, who came from far and started stepping up the podium and winning as soon as we focussed on the positive side in an athlete. That’s still my number 1 approach to athletes!

A Time trial is a real specialty, do not mix this up with being able to ride long at moderate intensity. Tom pushed his body to the limit and ends up with 396NP, that’s hard! This athlete weighs ~74kg
They call him ‘deamon on the bike’, but today he’s called Mr Fourty!

Late in the afternoon it was time for our Canadian athletes to go into the 70.3 triathlon in Maine, USA! Heather, Corey and Andreas were very motivated towards this race.

For Heather this race is her last step up towards the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii! Coming out of the water with migraine she managed the bike but then wisely skipped the run, being first in her AG. A good recovery now and then only the big Island waiting!

Corey and Andreas went into this race quite different, this was their main objective this summer. Corey was  not far behind on the swim and managing a 280NP ride he came off the bike within a position that was possible to reach the  podium. This must have motivated him to get off the bike fast and set the best runsplit only 33″away from 2nd position at the finisline! I repeat, if you can’t run off the bike..you can’t win!

280NP on this half Iron for Corey made him put his bike down well at T2. The fastest runsplit made him step up the podium!
Corey having a good swim in Maine, and directly moving up to the front on the bike!

Andreas from his part definitely did his best ever triathlon. You could say this was his breakthrough race, finishing 7th overall in Maine! Andreas realised a fast bikesplit and moved up even more places than Corey. Question was, what could he do on the run? Well, he smashed it…running  4th running split and entering top 10 on place #7!

Next week we have 3 World Championships,

with the Ironman70.3 WC in Australia, Raph and Sophie are at location already. The race will be very fast and the level densified.

There is also the World Championships cycling for amateurs with Ambrose, also in Australia and the World championships duathlon in Switzerland with Jan!

 

Train smart, perform better!

 

Jesse

 

 

 

 

 

 

The heat is on!

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The heat is on!
Tropical temperatures in Europe at the moment…
The weekend kicked off great yesterday, our Pierre got 2nd in the Trail des 2Ours at Nandrin!
Pierre is in full prep for the Ironman World Champs in Kona, Hawaii! His ‘heattest’ was successfull!

Early this morning in Vichy(France) our athletes started in the Ironman70.3 among 2300athletes. One of our youngsters, Jonas, got 42nd overall! Our oldest athlete, Guy took à bit more time and finished his 2nd consecutive IM70.3. Ironman Turkey is following!

Our cyclists are doing super, Anthony had a nice summer already and confirmed his shape week after week. Today at ‘La Velomediane’ 170km and lots of climbing waited for him. From the first climb he went into the breakaway…and managed till the end with a nice 5th place as result. Congratulations to this in extreme weather conditions!
Also in the Ardennes Samuel was picking up experience.

Our time trial specialist Svenne and Tom Veepunt were ambitious in the days leading up to GP Roland (individual Time Trial). Their ambitions were confirmed, with a 380NP and +46km/h (monstrueux) Tom took that win and follows Hans on the list of honour! Svenne finally realised podium in his homeTT and gets 3rd! Strong boys on the bike!

COrey NP

This evening in Holland the duathlon of Borne became a general repetition for Jan towards the Duathlon World Champs next week. Former dutch champion won this short distance duathlon, Jan got 4th and now gets a week of rest towards the world champs in Switzerland!

 

Different disciplines, different approaches, different athletes, same motivation and all at their very best racing and battling for the best they could be today! And they were good, inspirational for our other athletes!

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'@[1030751365:2048:Jonas Delrue] performing among the best in France -Vichy'
'Gianni @[100002249719852:2048:Jan Meysmans] 4th in Borne - Holland, another great race this season, ready for the World Champs'
'@[1069663853:2048:Pierre Beaufort] succeeded in his test against the heat. 6weeks to go towards Ironman World Champs Hawaii!'
'Climbing is a specialty, @[1222849562:2048:Anthony Spysschaert] is having a great summer and getting 5th in La Velomediane was one of his maingoals! Tomorrow another tough race!'