Victory at IRONMAN France

IRONMAN Nice, what a race, atmosphere, course, spectators, … I’m extremely happy to win this once again.

From the start of the swim the pace was high. This year’s swim was without a wetsuit, so the field was more stretched out. Exiting the water in third position gave me the possibility to implement my race strategy immediately. Namely to  set pressure from the start of the bike section.  The slightly renewed bike course made it harder, including the warm temperatures. A full focus on the nutrition plan was needed. In the second transition I had an advantage of 27 seconds over Cameron Wurf and about 10 minutes on Eneko Llanos.
 

The marathon promised to be hot and hard so every possible refreshment was more than welcome. But at 8 km I didn’t pay enough attention and I ran with my head into a shower head. It started to bleed intense immediately and at 10 km medical care was needed. After this had happened I was a bit confused and it took me about 15 km to retrieve my focus and dig deep into my mental strength. Eventually winning this race again, after an eventful day, makes me very proud.
 

After the race some numbers came to my mind and I started to think of what I have accomplished so far. It’s my 10th big international victory, including a World Championship and an European Championship, 7th IRONMAN victory, 4th IRONMAN France victory, 2nd IRONMAN victory in only 9 months and 2nd IRONMAN victory with my new Cervélo P5X. So great and motivating numbers to start working towards Hawaii 2017.

 
See you soon!
 

Frederik Van Lierde

Photo: Oliver Dom