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Sofie Goos wins Antwerp Ironman 70.3

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25/07/2010
Sofie Goos of the Uplace Triathlon Team has won the Antwerp half Ironman (1,9 km swimming, 90 km cycling and 21 km running). Her hometown saw her taking the race for the second consecutive time, clocking in at 4:13:40 to defeat British favorites Rachel Joyce (4:16:25) and Emma-Kate Lidbury (4:19:56). With his win on the men’s side, Bart Aernouts (3:43:38) completed the Antwerp party. He beat fellow Belgian Marino Vanhoenacker (3:45:08) and Dirk Bockel (3:45:55) from Luxemburg for the win.

Sofie completed the swimming leg, usually her weakest of the three sports, in third position, trailing Lidbury and Joyce by just thirty seconds. For Sofie, it was a surprisingly solid start, “I had hoped to minimize the gap between myself and the Joyce in swimming so that I could try to catch up in the cycling stage to allow myself to start running with Joyce. As it turned out, I already joined her after the first change-over.” Encouraged by the hometown crowd, Sofie quickly took the lead during the cycling leg. She would only increase that lead during the rest of the race, “After four kilometers I was able make a break. I really pushed hard cycling to create as much of a distance between myself and the rest. That turned out to be a good move, especially because I didn’t feel great running. But by then, things could hardly go wrong anymore.” Sofie finished the race almost three minutes in front of Joyce.

Sofie was more than pleased with a win in a hometown race she had been looking forward to for months, “I really wanted to win here and really tried to be my best for this race. I got to enjoy it too. More so than last year, because the race was less tight. Those last hundred meters through downtown Antwerp were just wonderful.”

Next up for Sofie is a month-long training stage. On Friday, she leaves for Font-Romeu to prepare for the Hawaii Ironman in October. Her next race is the Olympic Distance triathlon of Knokke (Begium - 1 september).


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