Trek athletes made men’s Ironman World Championship special

Trek’s trio of men’s Ironman triathletes squeezed every ounce of drama and performance they could from a thrilling Ironman World Championships in Nice this past weekend. Marten Van Riel finished fourth, just off the podium, making him the fastest non-Norwegian racer on the day. Matthew Marquardt was the fastest American in Nice, finishing eighth, despite another bout of cramps and a slide-out crash on the bike. And Sam Long charged back from 35th place in the swim to finish 14th after a blistering bike and run.

Van Riel mentioned “bittersweet feelings” after the race, having come within six minutes of the podium in his Ironman World Championships debut. But considering the circumstances, he gave one of the best performances of the race, and proved he will be a contender to win in the future.

Van Riel had been running for fewer than four weeks entering the race due to a bad ankle sprain that threatened to keep him home for World Champs. He lined up in Nice knowing that he wasn’t 100 percent, and still managed to put on a show, leading the entire field on the bike and into the run. He was one of the last men standing against the Norwegian brigade on the run, getting distanced early on the second of four laps. Van Riel posted a 2:40:46 marathon time on a “bum” ankle to take fourth.

“I think I can be happy given my ankle injury, and even doubting if I would start the race last month, with only four weeks of build-up on the run,” Van Riel said after the race. “I’m happy with how I attacked the race. I raced mostly from the front. Got a lot of air time on the swim and the bike. And unfortunately the three Norwegians were stronger on the run, but it definitely lit a fire. I’m hoping to be in Kona next year and hopefully better this performance.”

Every time Marquardt races, it seemingly results in an epic tale. The theme of his season has been “cramps,” which had snakebitten him heading into the first transition of every race this season. Sunday’s race was the first time he was able to start his bike leg without issue, but unfortunately that was only a brief reprieve. About one mile in the ride, debilitating cramps struck once again and refused to let up for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Marquardt dropped to about 35th place after emerging from the swim among the top competitors.

“I thought we had dodged the bullet,” Marquardt said after the race. “I think I probably lost about seven or eight minutes total. Thankfully, after about 20 minutes or so, it did start to loosen up, and I got into a group with Cam Wurf and rode with him for a while, and then eventually decided to drop him and make my own push.”

By roughly Mile 84, Marquardt powered his way up to roughly 10th place on the road … then setbacks struck again. After a long descent, Marquardt set out on a flat portion of the course, only to slide out going around a curve and fall hard on his right hip, while also scraping up his hands. He checked himself and the bike over to make sure he could continue, but though nothing was broken, the pain was excruciating.

When Marquardt started the run, he was unsure whether he would be able to finish. But the pain in his hip slowly subsided — “thanks to the wonders of exercise-induced analgesia,” he wrote on Instagram — and he ran the 10th-fastest marathon time of the race at 2:40:24 to finish as the top American and eighth overall.

“Certainly it wasn’t as good as if I had not crashed. But you can’t necessarily play those ‘what if’ games all the time,” Marquardt said. “I’m very happy overall. First top 10 finish at a world championship. Very proud to be the top American. And I think it certainly adds a lot of motivation going forward to know that I was top 8 and there was still so much time left out on the course, and so many areas to improve, if we can just figure out the cramping alone. So I’m looking forward to continuing the process of getting better and racing against the best in the world.”

Long came into the race with a goal of a top 10, so from that perspective he was somewhat disappointed to fall four places short. But he couldn’t be happier with how he raced, and the way he reasserted himself as a full Ironman racer who demands attention.

The swim leg may always be Long’s weak point as a triathlete, but he mitigated the damage well to emerge from the water in 35th, in touching distance of company. Then he proceeded to march through the pack on the bike and run. Being a bigger competitor, he wasn’t as well-suited for Nice’s steep climbs as some of his rivals, but that didn’t stop him from turning in the 15th-fastest bike and ninth-fastest marathon.

“I had clear process goals across all three disciplines — the swim, bike and run — and I executed those almost perfectly. In the end, I raced almost exactly as I had intended,” Long said after the race. “The bike turned out to be a bit harder than expected, which made the run slower than I had hoped. Being a bigger athlete — ‘the Big Unit’ — I knew that Nice would be a challenging course for me. The climbs are steep, which means I have to push more power than the smaller guys to keep pace. That’s why I set out a long-term plan to work on my technical abilities with a 12-week European training camp in Italy and Slovenia.”

For all three athletes, Nice gave them lots of good reason to be optimistic about their progression and potential going forward. Van Riel will get fully healthy, and has the potential to take on anyone at that point. Ditto Marquardt as soon as he solves that pesky cramping problem (oh and by the way, he’s still crushing med school.) And Long is still the consummate fighter, who can throw down watts with the best of them and has a hunger to improve that will serve him well in Ironman races going forward.

“This race really feels like a return to the Ironman spotlight for me,” Long said. “Some of my past Ironman performances were overlooked, especially with races where the swim was canceled. But here, I stepped back into the light, and I’d call this the most competitive Ironman World Championships I’ve ever seen. To finish 14th in the world, I’m incredibly proud of that.”

All three Trek competitors just gave some of the most inspiring performances of their careers on one of triathlon’s biggest stages. We can’t wait to see where they go from here.