Belgian team Uplace dominates 70.3 Antwerp

Belgium's first pro triathlon team have done their nation (and blueseventy) proud at 70.3 Antwerp with Bart Aernouts taking the mens title and team mate Sofie Goos winning the womens.  In fact you could be forgiven for thinking you were reading the 2010 results - because they both won the event last year.

Axel Zeebroek kicked off a great day of racing for the team leading out of the swim, with Bart trailing him by 3min 16 heading onto the bike.  But Bart showed his form with a race best 2.07.33 bike split followed up with a dominating run split of 1.10.04 - more than 4mins faster than the next fastest run split!

Bart took the podium spot with a total time of 3.45.36, 3 minutes ahead of Axel and 9 minutes in front of German Markus Fachbach.  This is his second win in a row at this event, after running down Bjorn Andersson's 7min lead off the bike to take the title ahead of Marino Vanhoenecker and Dirk Bockel who finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.

And making sure the women of the Uplace Team could take equal share of the celebrations was Sofie Goos, who won the women's race for the third year in a row.  Sofie strung together a consistent performance to take the win in 4.21.24, finishing 1min16 ahead of fellow Belgian Sophie de Groote.  Natascha Badmann rounded out the podium, finishing in 4.26.44.

Uplace Team members Tine Deckers and Bert Jammaer also raced during the weekend with Tine Deckers finishing 2nd in Ironman Lake Placid; now sure of her ticket for IM Hawaii.


Bert Jammaer finished 8th in Ironman Frankfurt. For Bert it was his first Ironman of the year after being diagnosed with mononucleosis at the end of March.  The race was a great hit out for him in a quality field and team manager Ben De Wolf was happy with his result.  "For long time in the run he was on track for a top 5 finish but the last 10k his tank was empty. Step by step he will reach back his best level and I’m sure he will be close to an Ironman win later this season".