IRONMAN Ambassador and race schedule

IRONMAN World Champion Frederik van Lierde to become newest IRONMAN ambassador.

There seems to be something about Belgium that makes for great triathletes: First there was Luc van Lierde whose 7:50:27 stood for more than ten years as the world’s fastest IRONMAN time and who collected two IRONMAN World Championship titles on the way. Then we witnessed the rise of Marino Vanhoenacker who demolished the field at IRONMAN Austria 2011 in 7:45:48, celebrated multiple wins and paved his way into the history books.  In 2013, another Belgian wrote himself into triathlon history when Frederik van Lierde claimed the 2013 IRONMAN World Championship title as a dark horse competitor with a class-act race.

Now the latter is ready to commit himself full-time to IRONMAN racing and will become the newest IRONMAN ambassador. As one of the largest triathlon series’ worldwide bringing long-distance triathlon to a diverse global community, Frederik’s role as IRONMAN ambassador will go a long way towards inspiring spectators and aspirant athletes to becoming IRONMAN athletes themselves. 

“I’m very happy and proud to become an Ambassador for IRONMAN. Being an IRONMAN World Champion is a real honour to me so I really want to engage and support people in becoming an IRONMAN as well. Even after all the races I have done, hearing: ‘You are an IRONMAN’ at the finish line still gives me goose bumps each time. You just know that you pushed your limits and had a great day doing so,” said van Lierde.

“Frederik has proven to be one of the greatest athletes in the history of long distance triathlon among the likes of Craig Alexander, Chris McCormack, Faris Al-Sultan and all the others who have all earned their fame through their great performances at IRONMAN races, most notably the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona – considered by many as the ultimate race in triathlon. Frederik’s future work with IRONMAN will help our athletes and partners to further grow and enjoy our sport. I am sure he will continue to impress us at key races like the IRONMAN European Championship Frankfurt, the most important race in Europe, “ said Thomas Dieckhoff, CEO IRONMAN Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The Belgian’s 2015 race schedule reflects his new role in which he will exclusively race at IRONMAN races: “My schedule has been created around three major goals: the Standard Bank IRONMAN African Championships, the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt and of course the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona. After Kona I will also race in the new IRONMAN 70.3 Turkey as I believe I will still be in a very competitive shape after Kona”, van Lierde adds. In between van Lierde will also compete at the 5150 Triathlon Series event in Kraichgau, Germany. Van Lierde will also make an appearance at the Belgian Half Distance Championship in Deinze on August 23.

As many athletes before him, Frederik was inspired to get into triathlon by another athlete – no one other than fellow countryman Luc van Lierde who celebrated two wins in Kona in 1996 and 1999. “Even if we share the same name we are unrelated. But Luc was a huge inspiration for me to try out triathlon and I ended up really liking it and eventually becoming a professional. I was really impressed by his performance and the atmosphere in Kona. Since I was a good swimmer and did some cross-country running at school I thought it would suit me well to become a triathlete. Now Luc is also my coach so this partnership has come a long way and is very special to me.”

29/03/2015     Ironman South Africa
17/05/2015     Ironman 70.3 Barcelona
07/06/2015     Kraichgau 5150
05/07/2015     Ironman Frankfurt, European Championship
23/08/2015     Half triathlon Deinze, Belgian Championship
10/10/2015     Ironman Hawaii, World Championship
25/10/2015     Ironman 70.3 Turkey