It simply didn’t end up being the debutant Marten van Riel who won Ironman Cozumel, however rather routinier and compatriot Bart Aernouts. Therefore, for Belgian triathlon fans, the race in Mexico was unquestionably a race with 2 advantages and disadvantages: while the day was more than terrific for Aernouts, Van Riel’s launching was damaged due– in all possibility– a definitive crash.
It was Van Riel who was viewed as the preferred in advance; although today was the very first time he had actually ventured into the 140.6 range, with last season’s success (recently he crowned himself the winner of the T100 series, ed.) in mind, everybody believed an excellent result. Van Riel right away took the lead throughout the swim and came out of the water initially after 39:48 minutes. Pamphiel Pareyn, likewise Belgian, followed 1:16 minute behind as the very first chaser, and after that guys like Fernando Toldi, Chris Mintern, Flavio Morandini, Bogdan Kovalenko, Elliot Bach and Nicholas Chase followed. Following that chasing after group was a space of numerous minutes to the next chasers, and Aernouts followed 16th in T1 with a 5:04 minute deficit.
On the bike, Van Riel was quickly gone to by Kovalenko, however he rapidly left him behind to ultimately ride solo in the lead for a long time. His lead never ever ended up being truly big, since changing in between one and 2 minutes, a well formed group followed with Leon Chevalier, Cameron Wurf, Chris Leiferman, Michael Weiss and likewise Aernouts.
Till 165 kilometers on the bike, absolutely nothing appeared incorrect for Van Riel– although the chasing group had actually joined him already– however then he all of a sudden lost 20 minutes in the last 15 kilometers. The Belgian professional athlete would have been associated with a crash with a crossing lady and after that needed to wait a very long time for the authorities. Although this has actually not yet been formally validated, numerous sources did verify this.
Van Riel did continue his race, however generally the race was totally over for him. At the exact same time, this provided extra point of views for the others and Aernouts did not be reluctant for a minute by instantly developing a space throughout the run. It guaranteed that he led the race solo for the whole 42 kilometers and ultimately won in a time of 7:39:24. Leiferman completed second in 7:45:12 and Chevalier 3rd in 7:46:58. Van Riel wound up in seventh position after ending up in a time of 7:56:35.