Things We Noticed from Ironman Cozumel (Including the Official Word on Marten Van Riel’s Crash)

Last week we previewed T100 world champion Marten Van Riel’s first go at the full-distance and, in the end, the Belgian star’s performance turned out to be the big news from the race, but not because he won. The day provided more than a few interesting stories – here are a few that caught our eye:

Van Riel’s Crash

The race in Cozumel wasn’t part of the IRONMAN Pro Series, so there was no live coverage of the event. For those who were tracking the race via the athlete tracker, things got wacky towards the end of the bike. After leading out of the water and then for roughly the first two-thirds of the bike, Van Riel was joined at the front by a group that included (among others) his countryman Bart Aernouts, Leon Chevalier (FRA), Chris Leiferman (USA) and Cam Wurf (AUS).

Towards the end of the bike, though, Van Riel disappeared from the front group, only to hit T2 in 18th place, over 20 minutes behind. Here’s the official statement from IRONMAN:

We are aware of an accident at IRONMAN Cozumel in which professional triathlete, Marten Van Riel, lost control of his bike, veering off course, and colliding with a young spectator who was watching the race from the sidelines. Van Riel waited with the spectator until emergency services could arrive and attend to them both. After following required local law enforcement protocols, Van Riel was able to continue with his race. 

We are thankful to learn that neither the spectator nor Van Riel sustained any serious injuries, and we extend our gratitude to the medical personnel who treated both the athlete and spectator promptly.

Van Riel provided more details in a post on Instagram

“After 175km on the bike I lost control of my bike (on a cateye or hole in the road) and swerved into the side where a little girl was supporting the race,” he wrote. “Unfortunately I hit her at 50 km/h and crashed very hard. Luckily the girl had her family there and she looked relatively ok except for a cut in her finger. The ambulance was quickly there and provided first aid to both of us, later the police also came to take a report.”

Van Riel ended up seeing the girl again when he went to the hospital in Cozumel for stitches.

“After the race I got brought to the hospital to get my elbows stitched and do some x-rays,” he continued. “Cozumel has only one hospital so the girl was also there and I was able to talk with her and give her my finisher medal and a shirt. Her mom told me that every year she watches the race, and I really hope this won’t change that!”

Van Riel would run the day’s fastest marathon (2:39:38) and ended up seventh. There were five qualifying spots for next year’s men’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice. It will be interesting to see if he ends up trying to qualify sometime next year. One would imagine Van Riel will be looking to defend his T100 world title, so fitting two IRONMAN races into that mix might be a challenge.

Speaking of Crashes

Germany’s Anne Reischmann had a horrible high-speed crash on a descent at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice in September when a water bottle slipped through her rear cage and momentarily got caught between her frame and rear wheel. She described the crash in detail on her social media channels, and my friend and former colleague Frank Wechsel was right behind her when she went down.

The German bounced back in style to take second at Challenge Peguera Mallorca in October, then returned to the site of her IRONMAN debut in 2022. (She finished fourth that year in 8:56:56.) This year Reischmann improved her time dramatically, especially on the marathon. She took the win in 8:38:08, and much of the drop can be attributed to her 16-minute improvement in the marathon (3:18:44 in 2022 to 3:02:03 this year.)

Bart Aernouts Back on Top After 6 Years

The last time Bart Aernouts won an Ironman race was in 2018 when he won IRONMAN Hamburg (pictured above). Later that year he would take second in Kona. While he’s won at least one race every year since except in 2022, those races have all been over the half-distance. After a fifth at IRONMAN South Africa and ninth at IRONMAN Lake Placid, the 40-year-old finally dialled in a winning performance in Cozumel.

Aernouts has always been a consummate pro, one who’s always willing to take the time for an interview. I got to announce him coming across the line to win IRONMAN Lanzarote in 2017 and then was on hand a few months later to watch him take the win at Challenge Roth. After his runner-up finish in Kona in 2018 I got to spend some time with him at the Laguna Phuket Triathlon, where he was inundated with interview request and appearance requirements for the race organization. He never batted an eye and was good natured through it all, and managed to round out his impressive season with a runner-up finish.

Looks like the Belgian will be off to Nice next year – he finished second at IRONMAN Nice last year, so he’s no stranger to success on that course.

Runner-up Finishes – Impressive Debut and Redemption

Austria’s Lisa Perterer added her name to the long list of short-course athletes who have used IRONMAN Cozumel as a first long-distance race. A three-time Olympian (London in 2012, Tokyo in 2021 and Paris in 2024), Perterer had done three 70.3 races before she went all-in on the long-distance front after competing in Paris. She took sixth in her home-country event at IRONMAN 70.3 Zell am See, then won IRONMAN 70.3 Cozumel and took another sixth at IRONMAN 70.3 Portugal. Now the 33-year-old has nailed down a slot for Kona.

After dropping out of the world championship in Kona, American Chris Leiferman bounced back with a repeat runner-up finish in Cozumel – he was second last year, too. That goes along with his third-place finish on the Mexican island in 2016, the year he won on debut at IRONMAN Mont-Tremblant. Leiferman has quietly racked up a number of IRONMAN and full-distance wins (six), to go along with a couple of 70.3 wins. All-told he’s finished on the podium at 20 IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 races, along with a couple of third-place finishes at the Wildflower Triathlon. Now he’s dialled in another chance to compete at the worlds next year.

A First Drafting Penalty for Cam Wurf

The former Kona bike course record holder (pictured above at this year’s race in Kona – photo by Eric Wynn) splits his professional career between triathlon and pro bike racing as part of the INEOS Grenadiers. Wurf routinely rides his way through the field in any triathlon he’s competing in, so he doesn’t spend much time having to worry about getting too close to the wheel ahead.

“In a nutshell, I received buy first career drafting penalty,” Wurf wrote on Instagram. “To add insult to embarrassment, it happened just as we’d finally got to the front of the race. From the absolute perfect scenario, to a worst case race nightmare. In the blink of an eye there is was standing in the bright yellow Sin Bin Tent for 5 eternal minutes.”

Once back on the bike Wurf says he struggled to find his legs. He would get to T2 in eighth, 11:32 behind Aernouts.

A week after taking seventh in Kona, Wurf ran 2:36:22 at the New York Marathon.

“Thanks to my new found delusional belief in my running legs, I started the run at my NY marathon pace,” Wurf wrote. “Alas, it didn’t take long for reality to hit hard and I imploded yet again.”

Wurf would eventually run 2:51:42 and finish eighth.

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Anne ReischmannBart AernoutsIRONMAN CozumelMarten Van Riel