Van Riel supreme in Dubai to win first T100 Triathlon World Championship Crown – World Triathlon

Marten Van Riel defied the intense heat and then outran the world’s best triathletes to win the inaugural T100 Triathlon World Championship Final and take the first-ever T100 Triathlon World Championship Title in commanding fashion this afternoon in Dubai.

Van Riel chalked up his 3rd T100 win from 4 T100 starts and make history – following victories in San Francisco, Ibiza and now Dubai – earning $301,000 in prize money along the way.

Rico Bogen’s 2nd place finish in Dubai saw him jump 7 places in the T100 Standings up to 3rd overall and earn an extra $90,000, while a huge performance put 2-time Olympic champion Alistair Brownlee on a T100 podium for the first time, earning 5th in the series overall and $60,000.

Kyle Smith, who finished the day in 4th nevertheless ended his year on the T100 podium – the only Wildcard athlete to do so – securing 2nd place and a cheque for $140,000.

Speaking after the race, Van Riel spoke about the tactics employed to become T100 Triathlon World Champion: “I was definitely not in total control, but I could feel that I had a couple of surges in me. Rico is really good at keeping the pace high but when I put my first surge in and we dropped Kyle, I could see that he was already suffering a bit, so I knew that with a couple of kilometres to go I was going to put in a big surge.”

When his victory was met by approval from 2 world champions in attendance, Jan Frodeno and Sam Laidlow, Van Riel quipped, “I finally feel like I’m part of a gang here!”

But the Belgian didn’t play down the difficulty of having a target on his back as the series leader: “It was honestly really tough, especially wearing that number 1, because in my head I knew that a podium place was good enough and if you have that in your head, it’s actually really hard to go for the win. So, I was trying to think not too much of the title and just try to perform as I could on the day.”

Speaking about the importance the T100 Triathlon World Tour has had alongside the Olympics in the 2024 season, Van Riel added: “I think it was very good to have this goal…to do well in the T100 series this year. And to be able to do that has been kind of what has kept me on and not make me doubt too much for the Olympic Games, because I knew my shape was way, way, way, way better than what I showed there. Unfortunately, you have one day to show it.. but it was really good to not have the time to think about it too much and go straight into the T100 series and it’s definitely made for a great season.”

“It’s all the difficult movements that make the beautiful ones even more beautiful. This makes it all worth it. 2022 and 2023 were really hard seasons for me. I think I had 9 months off running – and running is still my insecurity of not being fast enough. But I think that long-distance just suits me better because it doesn’t come down to 100 percent a run as short distance does these days and it’s more that the 3 disciplines are important. So I think that I’m finally playing with my best cards.”

Second place on the day, Rico Bogen reflected on the quelling the voices of naysayers who claimed he couldn’t perform in the heat.

“I’m so proud,” said the German. “So many people said I can’t handle the heat and it really challenged me and I thought, ‘How can I handle it?’… I trained for it and the team with me worked it out and now I can say, ‘Yes, I can do it!’”

“I wanted to prove it to the others, we trained it… we did heat training – I did indoor sessions with long sleeves… Now I proved it to the world. The Mystery Pro said I am the first one and so many comments said ‘f*cking hell, Rico will not win’ and then I’m running until 2km to the finish line with Marten, so it’s so, so great.”

Speaking of the team behind his fabulous performance, Bogen added: “We are a team, we call us the 3 musketeers and so the manager, coach and me are really working strongly together. We built a plan on how to handle the heat, we focused on this day in Dubai, where there are more points, and in the end, it finally worked out.”

“It’s really crazy… I was 10th before the race and I thought maybe I’d be 8th… the main goal was to stay in the top 10 and now I’m 3rd, it’s crazy.”

With upsets, penalties and niggles along the way, Alistair Brownlee’s 3rd place in Dubai seemed a long time in the making with the British star committing totally to the T100 Triathlon World Tour this year.

“I needed some stars to align and thankfully they aligned for me today,” said Brownlee, then reflecting on the moment he was brought down onto the Tarmac during the run, he added: “It was just when I caught him [Smith] as well, it couldn’t have been any worse timing. I was running down the hill there as quickly as I could and I was pushing it around some gravel on the corner. But in terms of the things that could’ve gone wrong that’s a minor one!”

Speaking about the difficulties in remaining at the top of the sport, Brownlee said: “You know very rarely things are going to go perfect and you have to train and prepare and try and deal with the stuff that goes wrong. Most of the time, unfortunately I can’t and I‘m too much near the edge and yeah, I need the stars to align.”

Those stars aligning seemed all the more unlikely due to Brownlee having hardly trained since the Ibiza T100: “In terms of my physical ability I’ve been fitter in some other races this year and I just had to do what I could do today…I try to take a positive attitude into every race and really not take things that go well or badly… just be really level headed. But yeah, the last 2 months have actually been horrific. I’ve hardly done any sessions. I’ve done 1 bike session since Ibiza, 2 run sessions, 1 hard swim session. It’s been so bad.”

“I did a bike session last Sunday and that’s the first decent anything I’ve done on the bike since Ibiza and I thought it’s kind of good I’ve still got it because it’s not been there for about 5 weeks!”

Summing up the first T100 Triathlon World Tour season, he added: “It’s a lot of travel that’s true, it’s spread out over the year and to be honest I haven’t done any other triathlons, I’ve just focused on this. My thinking was… I can’t put all my eggs in a few baskets these days, there are too many uncontrollables. I have to spin the dice, turn up to the races with whatever form I’ve got and see what happens.”

How The Race Unfolded

Under even hotter conditions than those faced in the women’s Dubai T100 Triathlon World Championship Final yesterday, series leader Marten Van Riel began his bid to become the first-ever T100 Triathlon World Champion by hitting the front of the 2km swim in the stunning waters off Dubai’s Sunrise Beach.

Swim-star Aaron Royle was quickly onto the Belgian’s feet along with Youri Keulen, Alistair Brownlee and Rico Bogen, the latter stuffing ice down his suit at the halfway 1000m Aussie exit. While Kyle Smith, 3rd in the T100 standings and another potential champion, was also within the front group, 2nd-place Magnus Ditlev was 33 seconds behind while Sam Long (5th in the standings) was just over 2 minutes in arrears.

Royle moved into the lead on the second lap, the Aussie making landfall first at the head of a 13-strong group with the main contenders with the exception of Ditlev at 1:16 and Sam Long, who was last out of the water at 4:17.

Onto the 80km bike course, Matthis Margirier was first to push on and take pole position at the head of a group including Van Riel, Brownlee, Fred Funk and Bogen with Smith doing his best to hold on to the group.

Behind, Ditlev rode with typical strength, slashing his deficit down to 45 seconds by halfway, moving into the top 10 before the Dane had to swerve into the pits for the mechanics to take care of a slipped seatpost. That lost him just over 1 minute, taking him back to over 2 minutes behind the leaders.

As the front group of 6 made their way towards the bike-to-run transition, Ditlev was best of the rest, 1:35 behind while Funk, Brownlee, Bogen, Margirier, Van Riel and Smith readied themselves for the 18km run. Bogen was first into T2 while Brownlee was forced to backtrack and grab a bike shoe that had fallen as he entered transition to avoid a penalty.

As the run got underway, Bogen was quickly joined by Van Riel and Smith in a replay of the three-way battle that led to such an iconic finish at the San Francisco T100 earlier this year. Behind, Brownlee was trying to keep the trio in his sights but was losing time.

With 10km to go, Van Riel put in a big surge that Kyle Smith couldn’t follow, while Bogen not only matched the Belgian, but gritted his teeth and asserted himself at the front of the race, the pair inseparable. Behind, Brownlee entered the final 6km in 4th place, slowly reeling in Smith with Margirier in 5th.

At 2.2km to the finish, Van Riel dug in with a decisive move to stretch the elastic to Bogen and then break away completely, the Belgian looking resplendent in his pink and yellow kit under the Dubai sun. Meanwhile, Brownlee moved up onto Smith’s shoulder before a slip on gravel saw him hit the Tarmac. Back on his feet, the Brit re-caught the Kiwi before pushing ahead into 3rd.

Up front, Van Riel was clear. The 2-time T100 winner made it 3 wins as he crossed the line in 1st place to write his name into the history books as the first men’s T100 Triathlon World Champion, securing $210,000 in additional series prize money.

Bogen held tough for 2nd, moving the young German up a whopping 7 places in the T100 Standings into 3rd and a $90,000 cheque.

Fulfilling the dreams of many a die-hard triathlon fan, Alistair Brownlee took his first T100 Triathlon podium on this biggest stage and in doing so, moved himself up 6 places in the T100 Standings to 5th and earned an additional $60,000.

Kyle Smith crossed the line in 4th, enough for the Kiwi to bump himself up one spot in the T100 Standings and take 2nd overall for a $140,000 bonus.

Margirier rounded out the top 5, to finish the series in 7th for $50,000 and secure a T100 contract offer for 2025. Meanwhile Ditlev, 8th on the day despite his mechanical woes, ended the series in 4th place, worth an extra $75,000.

Check the full results HERE

T100 Triathlon World Tour series prize money breakdown

With the first-ever men’s T100 Triathlon World Champion now crowned, Marten Van Riel secures $210,000 from the $2m prize pot. Along with his 3 victories along the way to that historic World Champion title, the Belgian star takes away $301,000 in prize money from the series, plus his contractual payments.

The breakdown of the $2m prize money for the final T100 Triathlon World Tour standings is as follows:

1st – $210,000
2nd – $140,000
3rd – $90,000
4th – $75,000
5th – $60,000
6th – $55,000
7th – $50,000
8th – $45,000
9th – $40,000
10th – $35,000
11th – $30,000
12th – $26,000
13th – $24,000
14th – $22,000
15th – $20,000
16th – $18,000
17th – $15,000
18th – $15,000
19th – $15,000
20th – $15,000

Who’s Secured Contracts for 2025?

As well as the first T100 crown, there were also vital T100 contracts on offer in Dubai today, with the top 10 men all guaranteed an offer to stamp their ticket for the 2025 T100 Triathlon World Tour series which has already announced seven of its destinations.

They include: Marten Van Riel, Kyle Smith, Rico Bogen, Magnus Ditlev, Alistair Brownlee, Sam Long, Mathis Margirier, Pieter Heemeryck, Youri Keulen and Frederic Funk.

Outside the top 10 from this year’s T100 standings, the next 6 contracted athletes for 2025 will be decided through analysis of PTO World Rankings and those who’ve shone with standout performances in the 2024 season. The final 4 contracts will go to Hotshot athletes – those with the x-factor to shake up the racing regardless of their PTO World Ranking position or recent long-distance triathlon performances. That could be a former all-star coming back from injury or an Olympian making the move to long-distance racing.

Alongside the T100 professional races over the weekend, there were nearly 10,000 amateur participants signed up to take part across an equivalent 100km triathlon (2km swim, 80km bike, 18km run), a Sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) and a 5km Music run. The Music Run was making its debut in Dubai and is a 5km un-timed, energy filled fun-run that finishes with a party. Perfect for participants of all ages and abilities to fullil their Dubai Fitness Challenge of doing 30 minutes exercise for 30 days during November.