After a very successful start of the season, the Uplace-BMC Pro Triathlon Team is ready for the championships. Our team will be widely present in the different championships. Starting this Sunday with the US Championships 5150 in Hyvee, where Helle Frederiksen and Liz Blatchford will fight for the title.
Next weekend, in the world championship 70.3 in Mont Tremblant, we have 3 athletes at the start line: Helle Frederiksen; European Champion 70.3, Bart Aernouts and Will Clarke.
The pro slots for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii are also allocated. We are proud to announce 7 Uplace-BMC athletes will be competing in Kona on the 11th of October: European Champion, Corinne Abraham; Liz Blatchford; Sofie Goos; European Champion 70.3 Bart Aernouts; Romain Guillaume; Ronnie Schildknecht and Axel Zeebroek. Unfortunately Dirk Bockel won’t be able to participate in Kona due to a hip injury. Although qualified, Dirk had to make this very tough decision after thorough consultation with the medical staff.
As Dirk explains: “The decision not to race in Kona this year has been very hard for me. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion, as Kona has been and still is the seasons' goal every year. It has been a struggle for me to come to the point that health is more important. It is sad, but this is sport, it is very brutal at times. I deal with it, I will still go to Kona to support my team. Right now, it can do almost no training, which is a little bit frustrating at times because the injury does not heal as fast as I hope. It is very hard to make plans for the future. For now, the plan is to get healthy. Afterwards we have to see how we continue with the race plan. The goal is to be fit for the race in Bahrain on the 6th of December. It is the first time I go through an injury like that. It is frustrating but this is not the end of the world. I am very much looking forward to go back training very soon.”
We wish all our athletes great championships and a good recovery to Dirk Bockel.