Luc Van Lierde

0 Luc Van Lierde
at the Knokke Triathlon (September 2008)
Personal information
Date of birth	14th April 1969 (age 51)
place of birth	Bruges , Belgium
size	180 cm
Weight	70 kg
societies
current	Coach in the TZU Tri Team
successes
1995	Vice European champion triathlon short distance
1995, 1996	2 × runner-up world champion triathlon long distance
1996	Vice world champion triathlon short distance
1996	ETU European champion triathlon short distance
1996, 1999	2 × Ironman Hawaii winner
1997, 1998	2 × ITU world champion triathlon long distance
2005	Belgian champion triathlon middle distance
status
Resigned in 2009

Luc Van Lierde (born April 14, 1969 in Bruges ) is a former Belgian triathlete . He is a two-time ITU long distance world champion (1997, 1998), ETU European champion, two-time runner-up world champion (1995, 1996), Belgian champion in the Olympic distance and has won the Ironman Hawaii twice (1996 and 1999).

Career

Luc Van Lierde has competed in international triathlon competitions since 1990 and was one of the world's dominant athletes in the Olympic distance (1.5 km swimming, 40 km cycling and 10 km running) in the mid-1990s.

In October 1995 he was runner-up in the long-distance world championship at the Triathlon International de Nice .

Winner at Ironman Hawaii 1996

In 1996 Van Lierde entered the Ironman Hawaii as the reigning European champion and runner-up on the Olympic distance with a wildcard . Van Lierde was the only athlete to keep up with Thomas Hellriegel on his course record on the bike course, but then had to serve a three-minute time penalty in the transition area. Hellriegel increased his lead in the meantime to 4:40 min, but Van Lierde came up again and ultimately overtook Hellriegel with five kilometers to go and thus became the first European winner in Hawaii on his debut on the Ironman distance.
He undercut the previous course record by more than three minutes. Only fifteen years later, in October 2011, was his time undercut by the Australian Craig Alexander .

In 1997 and 1998 he was ITU world champion in the long distance triathlon.

World best time on the Ironman distance in 1997

Van Lierde held the world best time on the Ironman distance for 14 years with 7:50:27 h. In 1997 he mastered this distance at the Ironman Europe in Roth :

• 3.86 km swim - 44:51 min
• 180.2 km cycling - 4:28:47 h
• 42.195 km run - 2:36:49 h

This world record was only beaten on July 3, 2011 at Ironman Austria by Marino Vanhoenacker in 7:45:58 h and then again on July 10, 2011 by Andreas Raelert in his victory at Challenge Roth with 7:41:33 h. The running time for the marathon represents the current course record on the Ironman distance in Roth (today Challenge Roth) (as of January 2018). The current best time on the long distance was also set in Roth by Jan Frodeno in 2016 with 7:35:39 and is still valid today. (As of 2020)

In 2009 he declared his active time over. Today he works as a coach in the TZU Tri Team .

Coaching since 2010

Today he is active as a coach and trains, among others, Michelle Vesterby , Alexandra Tondeur , Marino Vanhoenacker and the Belgian triathlete Frederik Van Lierde , to whom he is not related.

Luc Van Lierde now lives in Bruges with his wife and child.

Awards

• Athlete of the year (Belgium) 1997, 1999

Sporting successes

(DNF - Did Not Finish )

Web links

• Official website of Luc Van Lierde
• Profile for Luc Van Lierde at the Institute for Applied Training Science , accessed on May 13, 2014
• Profile and results of Luc Van Lierde in the ITU database at Triathlon.org , accessed on October 4, 2018 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Source Ironman Europe - 10 years Ironman in Roth, list of results 1997. (PDF; 8 MB) July 1997, accessed on July 13, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Ironmanlife: Frederik Van Lierde (January 27, 2012)
3. ↑ Luc van Lierde wins with a new course record in Vienna
4. ↑ Luc van Lierde and Bella Bayliss victorious in the Volcano Triathlon
5. ^ European Triathlon Championships , GBR Athletics