The Riel deal: From T100 triumph to a 2025 sequel?

The 2024 race season was Marten Van Riel’s year. Or at least it was on the T100 circuit, where the Belgian pro proved his mastery over the 100km race format, winning three races and finishing a close second to take the inaugural title and the $210k champion’s cheque at the final race. 

The 32-year-old had less luck elsewhere, most notably at his third and final Olympics in Paris. After a sixth-place finish in Rio and an agonising fourth in Tokyo, he was hoping for another solid result. Twenty-second was the best he could do on an unusual day for the sport that would propel him into the limelight in a way which he’d never imagined (more later). 

And then there was Ironman Cozumel at the end of the year, where Van Riel (MVR) hoped to qualify for his first Worlds, just seven days after his T100 series victory. But after leading until 175km on the bike, Van Riel hit a pothole, swerved into the side of the road and hit a little girl who was spectating. 

Van Riel, despite suffering an elbow injury, completed the race but finished seventh, two places shy of Nice qualification. Luckily, after a trip to the local hospital, the girl was treated for a cut finger and took photos with Van Riel, who gave her his finisher’s medal. 

Hoping for a more settled year, Van Riel knows he’ll also have his work cut out as a raft of big names joins the T100 roster for 2025.

But for now we find him in Girona, where he trains with Glenn Poleunis’s PTC Coaching outfit, as he reflects on that tumultuous 2024 and plans ahead for what promises to be another scintillating season…

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220: The news has just broken that Cassandra Beaugrand will be joining your training squad this year. What are you hoping to learn from the Olympic champion?

MVR: Yeah, it’s a really cool opportunity for all of us in the group to level up to the professionalism [that she brings]. It’s interesting seeing how all these athletes deal with being at that level and everything that comes with it.

I personally struggle sometimes to find some kind of stability in my life, so this is something that I think I can learn a lot from Cassandra.

• France’s Cassandre Beaugrand takes Olympic gold in Paris

220: Your 2024 was also incredibly successful. And you would have had a clean sweep in the T100 were it not for your compatriot [Jelle Geens won Lake Las Vegas]. Does that still niggle?

MVR: Ha! Yeah, it stings a little but Jelle is a good friend of mine so I’m also happy for him. It was maybe also in a way good because I was getting a bit focused on that winning streak.

I knew that I was going to get beaten at some point, and that ‘loss’ gave me some more freedom, because while I don’t really care to lose a race, it’s sometimes also important.

And it was still a really good step towards the overall title, because with T100 it’s about who can be the most consistent over the year. And if you look at the field for next year, I hope, well unless it’s myself, I hope no one’s going to clean-sweep the whole series!

• Marten Van Riel takes T100 world title

220: In that field, who keeps you awake at night?

MVR: I think the main guy will probably be Hayden [Wilde]. At this distance, it’s getting harder to drop people on the swim because no one’s taking it out like they do in short course.

So Hayden is always going to be close and I think he’s shown that on the bike. And especially with some of the big firepower missing, like [Magnus] Ditlev, which is something that I could always take advantage of, now maybe I’m gonna have to be the one that’s gonna push the bike.

And then on the run, Hayden did it [dropped back after a strong start] in Paris and again in Taupo [the 2024 70.3 Worlds], but he’s going to get it right at some point and it’s going to be very hard for me to beat him on the run. And Jelle is also very, very fast, but I feel that’s very doable for me.

220: You started last year’s series on a level playing ground, but you go into it this year with the target on your back. How does that sit with you?

MVR: The level was always going to go up this year because last year there were a lot of Ironman guys who were really high in the PTO rankings, really good, solid athletes, but they were never going to be competitive in T100.

Maybe less than half the actual contracted field was actually competitive, whereas I think that this year nearly all of them are going to be competitive. So I know that everyone wants to take my title, but I just have to try and focus on myself.

220: You did four out of the six T100 races last year, so what’s your plan this year?

MVR: We’re contracted to do five out of the 10 races [full schedule still to be announced], so I probably need to do seven to be competitive.

I’m going to do the first four and then if it goes really well in the beginning of the year, maybe I can scrap some of the races at the end and race something else.

220: And are you still hoping to qualify for the Ironman Worlds in Nice?

MVR: Yes, I’m going to do Ironman South Africa at the end of March, which is a little bit complicated because we have to do Singapore T100 as part of our contract, which is the weekend after. It’s one of the races that I wanted to skip, so I might not have ‘it’ in Singapore.

But again, that’s the good thing about not having that winning streak anymore, I can be more comfortable with that. So I’m doing a bit more Ironman preparation now and then also again after the French Riviera T100 [end of June], if I’m qualified.

220: What was your T100 race highlight from last year and why?

MVR: San Francisco. I was the most unprepared there, which is why it makes me very happy that I could take the win. I’d done some Olympic qualification races just before it, so I had to travel a lot.

Afterwards I was thinking like, damn, that’s actually great that I pulled that off! I’ve raced Kyle [Smith, who he narrowly beat at the tape] and Rico [Bogen, who came a close third] a lot more since and you can’t underestimate those guys.

And that race has always been on my bucket list since I was a kid reading 220! Escape from Alcatraz was mythical, it’s different from any other triathlon, so to be able to take my biggest ever win there, was amazing.

220: You said after the Paris Games that you didn’t have an explanation for your performance. Six months on, do you have one now?

MVR: Yeah, I still don’t really have an explanation to be honest. I think that maybe I did let myself go a little bit too much when they postponed the date, because I’ve heard some athletes say that they were prepared for it. And I 100% wasn’t.

I did not think that that was going to happen. Then I posted something on that day [about his disappointment with the organisers], that got a lot of people sending me messages, media from all over the world were contacting me, and I think that I just lost my focus. Other than that, I’m still not really sure because I think my run was in the best shape that it’s ever been.

It probably still wasn’t enough to beat Alex [Yee] or Hayden, but I think we also saw on that day that even they were vulnerable on the run.

But yeah, during my career I’ve always been so consistent and I don’t have many performances that I kind of don’t know why. Unfortunately this one, yeah, still no idea really.

220: Does that mean there’s unfinished business?

MVR: Ha, no! When you come fourth it’s very hard to not want to come back. So maybe that’s the good thing about not coming fourth, fifth or sixth, now I’m kind of over it and I want to make a name in long distance.

It also just suits me a lot more. I still love the sport as much as when I was 18, before I was a pro. So I hope that I can still go for another eight to 10 years.

220: What are your thoughts now on how the Olympic triathlons were managed?

MVR: I still think it’s very bad. In the end, the Olympic triathlon was a big success, and we saw way more interesting races then maybe I also expected.

The very strong current made the swim more decisive, because the swim just doesn’t break packs up anymore, whereas here it did.

But yeah everything around it, for me, that was a very bad experience. And one of our girls got sick, Claire Michel, so we didn’t race the mixed team relay.

I don’t even know if it was because of the river, because only a handful of people got sick. But I think the biggest thing was just the fact that they [the organisers] didn’t really seem to care. ‘Oh we’ll just do it the day later.’

We’ve been training four years for this, and we’ve probably trained 5,000 hours of which probably 1,500 are swimming. They really can’t have that happen again because it just makes a joke out of the athletes.

A day in the life of Martin Van Riel

No two days are the same for a pro, but we asked Marten to provide a snapshot of an ‘average’ training day from this, his prep period…

• 7:30am: First alarm
• 7:45am: Actually getting out of bed
• 7:50am: Breakfast of oats mixed with chocolate muesli
• 8:15am: Off to the pool
• 8:30am: Swim (usually between 4-5km)
• 10:30am: Second breakfast of bagels with avocado, ham and cheese
• 11:00am: Rest/watch something, often on YouTube
• 12:20pm: Run to meeting point
• 12:30pm: Dynamic stretches and mobilisations
• 12:40pm: 75min run with 10mins LT1; 8 x 45sec hill repeats; 10 minutes LT1
• 2pm: Lunch at a café (La Comuna Cafe’s breakfast burrito is my favourite)
• 3pm: Rest/watch some TV
• 4pm: Easy 90-120min ride
• 7pm: Dinner is often meal-prepped by someone else, or will be something very simple like rice with vegetables and chicken (I don’t like cooking)
• 8pm: Check emails/doomscroll Instagram reels/watch tv
• 12am: Bedtime (too late as usual)

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