Marten Van Riel

Marten Van Riel’s story has taken him from a small town in Belgium to the top step of the podium on the world triathlon stage. Van Riel grew up in Loenhout as part of a sporting family and was a keen swimmer as a youngster. He also had a huge passion for watching professional cycling and started to dabble more and more with biking, alongside a natural talent for running. At the age of 15, he put the three together and started to forge a career in triathlon.

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A love for the sport was also driven by Marc Herremans, who also lived in Loenhout and was making international headlines in the world of triathlon, initially for finishing sixth at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii.

Herremans then suffered a horrible bike crash while training in Lanzarote and was paralysed, but took up a career as a paratriathlete and became the first ever wheelchair athlete to finish in Kona in 2006.

Herremans set up a small triathlon club for a few other local boys in the village, and it was obvious from the outset that Van Riel had something extraordinary about him. Herremans continued to coach and develop him as Van Riel broke forward with fantastic results before moving on as part of the Belgian team.

He became Belgian national champion in 2014 and two years later secured a spot at the Rio Olympics where he finished sixth.

Since then, he has taken victories in the Miyazaki World Cup race and bronze in the individual and Mixed Relay at the European Championships in 2018. He was fifth in the WTS rankings in 2019. He also successfully stepped up to middle distance racing to take the title at the Ironman 70.3 in Xiamen, China.

Van Riel suffered 19 months out of action due to a fracture and then lockdown but bounced back in huge style in 2021 to win back-to-back SLT Arena Games event in London and Rotterdam before finishing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics.

Marten finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics and fifth in the Mixed Relay as part of the Belgian team. He was forced out of the first race of the Super League Triathlon 2021 Championship Series with COVID, but was a consistent performer thereafter, as demonstrated by finishing sixth overall despite racing one fewer events than his rivals. His best race result was second in a sprint finish to Alex Yee at the finale in Malibu.

Van Riel is now coached by Joel Filliol and lives In Girona around the training group containing the likes of Jelle Geens, with whom he races the Mixed Team relay for Belgium, and Vincent Luis.