After the first Ironman Europe in 1988, Valerie Silk and the ETU agreed to hold only a half ironman every other year. So as not to draw athletes away from the ETU LD champs which were held over the ironman distance every two years. The 1989 version was in Rodekro, Denmark.
After Silk sold Ironman to James Gills and David Voth in late-1989 the deal was scrapped. And the race went back to ironman distance forever in 1990.
Thank’s for that…Love a good bit of Triathlon history trivia.
I hope he doesn’t, wouldn’t make sense so close to Nice.
I watched Laidlow race IM UK (Bolton) in 2021 and get reined in by Skipper on the run as he had a major wobble, having led for 130 miles. A young upcomer was third (Chevalier).
What a difference in their fortunes over subsequent seasons! Kudos to to their coaches (Laidlow senior and Cheetham) as well as to the two ‘Frenchies’ themselves.
With Laidlow’s swim/bike and now a 2:37 run ("my best ever’ he says!) I suggest LT2 will do it.
Biggest hazard is the parcours which is ‘scenic’, with an ‘out and back’ on a rather narrow road. Below image is one way only.
Yes dangerous roads and surfaces are what we are completely after.
Wait wait wait… this is a TWO WAY section of the bike course (that’s normally a one way road)?
Well I for sure hope he takes it very easy indeed 
. But am excited to see the start list.
Need to go and ride the course this weekend or next.
That picture must be on a one way part of the course. From street view the 2 way parts look pretty big A roads. Pretty much all UK Ironman events have had parts like the above. 70.3 Stafford,70.3 Swansea, IM Bolton, IM Wales.
Can be scary, Just have to hope no one has ignored road closures and is heading the other way.
Here is the course if anyone is interested. Ride with GPS | Bike Route Planner and Cycling Navigation App
No - image was of a road we’ll cycle down (only) (S edge of East Rigdon) - NB 1:10 down to the main road.
This is a stream bridge on the ‘out and back’ (NB three loops so on last one a range of speeds are available). The rest of it has good sight lines and a central white line.
Now that the 2025 edition is in the books, If you would like to race in 2026 and are willing to fundraise for the American Cancer Society, I have some charity slots remaining. Feel free to reach out to me at bob.duncan@cancer.org or call me at 513.260.3994
Where can I see the published race ranger data ?
Tristan Olij, in the words of a fellow PRO: biggest drafter I’ve seen - never hesitates to ride in the Race Ranger red
Brings to mind the accusations that Funk (and allegedly others) once leveled against another Dutch athlete, Youri Keulen.
I’ve always thought of the Dutch as extremely straight-laced and obsessed about rules even more than the Germanz. Need to revise 
You mean the country(along with their Belgium neighbors) who had a rash of deaths in the 80’s/90’s from overdoses of EPO?? I cannot recall just how many died and others with strokes and heart attacks, but it was so many that I think a pretty big investigation was started. Perhaps some of the old bike racers here can add some color to that decade…
If you can’t recall how can you know then? There were a few cyclists that died, but we had so many cyclists in those years as did the Belgiums. So much more then a lot of other countries. So the chances of a few dying is also much larger.
Those deaths were never officially linked to the use of epo, heck, one of or maybe the largest doped cycling teams ‘ cyclists in those ‘90’s early ‘00 were, oh yes, US cyclists / teams :-).
Not saying in anyway that like 90% of the rest of the cyclists and teams didn’t dope, on the contrary, they all did in those years.
Jeroen
Like I said, it was an old memory and I asked for any others from that time. SO I looked it up and there was this excerpt:
" * Between 1987 and 1990, 20 young Belgian and Dutch cyclists reportedly died from nocturnal heart attacks.
This is what I remembered, not exact numbers of course, just that it was way out of the ordinary…You are taking this personal I see, of course most all the riders and teams were doping back then, but this was a story about the beginnings of EPO, and how it was cyclists found the limits of how much was too much. Sad story really…
Just bumping this to ask if they ever released the Race Ranger data as promised…or implied.
They did say that they would release it within 48 hours if I recall correctly.
Maybe it will be a joint release
Of Roth race ranger data and t100 2024 contracts details lol
No, i don’t take it personally, of course not, why should I. But that relationship between the deaths of those riders and doping / use of epo was already brought down by several studies/investigations years ago when it was dissected in pure facts
So let the memory’s be memory’s but lets stick to the facts for the rest ;-).
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2011.555208#d1e2256
Interesting read.
Jeroen
It is an interesting read, but it also has some bias and really does not get to a conclusion as to all the deaths. And the one thing it appears to miss in the studies is that most likely these riders were in the 60+% range(Pantini like) and not 50% where the tests were done. Hell I’m at 50% naturally, and I suspect they didnt use 60+% because it is dangerous?? And also seems a little suspicious that such small countries had “so” many sudden deaths as compared to other ones. Sort of looked like the East German woman swim team back in the 70’s.
Article just went to disprove that EPO caused the deaths, but really didnt give a good alternative reason…
