It was an all-Olympian podium in the men’s race today at T100 Lake Las Vegas (as it was in the women’s race earlier), but the biggest news of the day was that Marten Van Riel was finally beaten in a long-distance race. After winning his first four 70.3 races, then taking the wins in his first two T100 races in San Francisco and Ibiza, someone was finally able to get across a finish line ahead of the Belgian – his countryman Jelle Geens. While Geens and Van Riel were both in Paris, third place went to a Tokyo Olympian, Germany’s Justus Nieschlag.
Another drafting penalty for Brownlee
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Alistair Brownlee has had a rough 2024 between injuries and tough race days. At T100 Ibiza he appeared to be getting things back on track, only to get the first T100 drafting penalty ever handed out. After coming out of the water with the lead group, then pushing to the front of the race behind Van Riel, Brownlee was given another drafting penalty today early on in the bike, effectively ending his day. (He would try to get back into the mix on the bike, but eventually pulled out of the race.)
Marten Van Riel takes T100 Ibiza as Alistair Brownlee given T100’s first draft penalty
Once Brownlee was out of the picture it was Van Riel, France’s Mathis Margirier, Geens and Nieschlag who led the way on the bike, riding about two minutes up on the next closest riders (Aussie Max Neumann and American Jason West).
Through the second half of the bike Nieschlag would get dropped from the mix, but was still only 51 seconds behind at the end of the bike – Van Riel hit T2 in first, with Margirier six seconds behind and Geens 10 seconds back.
After a disastrous swim that saw him almost six minutes down starting the bike, American Sam Long steadily climbed through the ranks over the last half of the bike, eventually hitting T2 in 10th, but he was still five minutes down.
Geens pulls away
Geens and Van Riel quickly dropped Margirier on the run, and the two Belgian Olympians had a back and forth race through much of the first 9 km of the run. Geens appeared to put the pressure on going up the hills, with Van Riel getting back into the mix on the downhills. By 10 km, though, Geens had opened up a gap and seemed to finally be breaking clear. A 10-second lead with two laps to go turned into a 12-second lead with one lap to go, but then Van Riel finally cracked. Geens would run an impressive 1:01:24 split to finish in 3:19:34, 37 seconds up on Van Riel (1:02:16/ 3:20:12). It was almost five minutes later that Nieschlag (3:24:19) would cross the line in third. Fourth went to another Belgian, Pieter Heemeryck (3:25:52), with Jason West (3:26:29) claiming the first American spot in fifth, followed by Long (3:26:49) just 20 seconds later.
The post Jelle Geens ends Marten Van Riel’s long-distance unbeaten streak at T100 Lake Las Vegas appeared first on Triathlon Magazine Canada.