The Trek Factory Team is Ready for Kona

When it comes to what is arguably the biggest show in the sport, pulling out all the stops to ensure you’ve got the optimum ride is critical. Trek has done just that for its four athletes competing at the IRONMAN World Championship this year, including recent IRONMAN 70.3 world champion Taylor Knibb, Marten Van Riel, Matthew Marquardt and Sam Long.

Their bikes are all decked out with Project One paint schemes that are sure to attract lots of attention. Slowtwitch’s Eric Wynn was able to catch up with three of the four out on the lava fields last week and gathered these great shots of their bikes.

Taylor Knibb

Knibb has been keeping the Trek support crew busy over the last month – after dialling in her ride for her dominant performance in Nice, a week later the Trek mechanics were busy ensuring all was in order for her appearance at the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Montreal, where the American finished 13th. Now she’s dialling things in here on the Big Island as she looks to finally take the win that seemed in her hands last year before she collapsed with less than two miles to go.

Matthew Marquardt

It’s not often that you refer to a Kona podium contender as “taking time off to race,” but that’s exactly how things are for American Matthew Marquardt, who somehow combines his impressive professional racing career with the rigours of being a medical student at Ohio State University. Earlier this year Marquardt won IRONMAN South Africa, then followed that up with a couple of runner-up finishes in Lake Placid and Kalmar (Sweden).

Marquardt arrives in Kona as the main hope to become the first American man to win the world championship since Tim DeBoom’s back-to-back championships from 2001 and 2002.

Marten Van Riel

The Belgian star makes his Kona debut this year after a great runner-up performance behind Kristian Blummenfelt in Texas, followed by an impressive win in Lake Placid, where he ran a 2:34:49 marathon to hold off Marquardt. Last year Van Riel was the first non-Norwegian across the line at the world championship in Nice, so he knows exactly what it takes to compete for the podium.

Van Riel got sick a few weeks out from the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Nice this year, which explains his somewhat disappointing 19th-place finish, but the word is he’s recovered and very fit as he prepares for Saturday’s race.

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