Marten ‘The Riel Deal’ Van Riel crowns himself PTO World Champion after convincing win Grand Final Dubai

Twice before he won a T100 race this season, once he finished second already and today Marten van Riel won the T100 Grand Final in Dubai. After a blistering battle especially between Van Riel, Rico Bogen and Kyle Smith, the Belgian athlete can call himself not only the day’s winner, but also the winner of the T100 final standings and thus PTO World Champion.

Van Riel started the race right away by taking the lead during the swim, although he was overtaken about halfway through by Aaron Royle. That was also immediately the first man out of the water but after the swim a large leading group formed, which in addition to Royle and Van Riel consisted of Rico Bogen, Alistair Brownlee, Youri Keulen, Mathis Margirier, Justus Nieschlag, Frederic Funk, Jason West, Kyle Smith and shortly behind them also Pieter Heemeryck and Ben Kanute. Biggest absentees in the water were Magnus Ditlev (+1:15) and Sam Long (+4:16).

It all made little difference to Van Riel, as the Belgian did exactly what was needed when he joined the leading group during the eighty kilometers of cycling. That leading group was getting smaller and smaller by the time and this was mainly thanks to Mathis Margirier, who pushed hard and held the lead for twenty kilometers, but after that Funk and Bogen, among others, also took over the lead. Thanks to the high pace that was being ridden, six men eventually remained at the front: Funk, Bogen, Van Riel, Brownlee, Margirier and Smith. Behind them, the differences were growing constantly.

Meanwhile, it was Ditlev who started a catch-up race, but halfway through the bike leg, when he had already halved his deficit, he suffered mechanical failure on his bike and lost over a minute fixing it. This also prevented Ditlev from making a serious fist during the bike leg, so the leading group of six started the run with a huge margin. Ditlev still followed in seventh at 1:48 minute behind, but his gap soon proved far too large.

What followed was a spectacular finale in which Van Riel, Smith and Bogen kept running side by side for about eight kilometers. The pace was high, very high in fact, and the first to pay for it was Smith. At the front, Van Riel and Bogen were left in pairs, and that remained the case until a kilometer and a half before the finish. That was the moment when Van Riel made the decisive move and also left Bogen dazed.

Van Riel won the race – and PTO world title – in a time of 3:09:17. Bogen was second in 3:09:39 and Brownlee, who passed Smith in the closing stages, was third in 3:10:25.