Rutger Beke is this year’s stealth candidate at Kona
Rutger Beke came to Kona as an unknown rookie in 2003 and shocked the world with a second place finish to Peter Reid. Just a year after this new Belgian tri-star was born, his career hit a land mine. A month before the 2004 Ironman, he tested positive at the Olympic distance Zwintriathlon in Knokke, Belgium. It took a year of desperate medical research and pleading his case to a regional court, but Beke and his medical and legal team proved his innocence. Beke had a rare blood condition in which his natural urinary byproducts after a hard effort in hot weather looked like artificial EPO under the electron microscope used in drug test analysis.
While Beke was free to resume his career, much of the sporting media in Belgium remained skeptical of his innocence. Fair or not, many triathlons fans were slow to accept him back in the sport as well. Still, Beke carried on at Kona, with a 5th place finish in 2004 and a 4th place in 2005. While he finally earned an Ironman win at Arizona in 2007, post-race injuries left him unable to train enough before Ironman Hawaii last year and he ended up walking in at 898th place.
Then, after a good winter, he got derailed again just before defending his Ironman Arizona crown, he got a lung infection. Following the fickle logic of attention deficit triathlon audience, the young Belgian slipped into a deeper obscurity than even previously unknown newcomer Chrissie approached Kona last year.
Yet, Beke has found his way back to top form and can’t wait to tackle the Queen K tomorrow.
Slowtwitch: You seem to be growing a beard like your father Herman. Is that a disguise to preserve your newfound anonymity?
Rutger Beke: I know. But my dad and my wife Sophie aren’t here for the first time in a long while. She is home with our new child, Phara, who was born three and a half weeks ago.
Slowtwitch: When you walked last year, what did it do to you?
Rutger Beke: It changed me. I became another person. When I decide to start walking, I felt terrible. But when I came to the finish line, I wasn’t even sad any more. It was kind of strange. When I went home after the race last year, I had finished 898th. People were afraid to call me and talk to me. They thought: ‘Oh, he is going to be so angry!’ Actually I’ve never been happier.
Slowtwitch: What did it teach you?
Rutger Beke: I learned one important lesson. Before, I was only happy with a good result. Now, I still want a good result. But it’s not going to change anything any more. If I’m 500th or 50th or first, I’ll go home and I’ll be happy with my wife and two children, Tilla and Phara. Before, when I got a result, I could be very sad and unhappy about it for a month. Now it won’t affect me any more. This changes things a lot for me. I race better when I’m a happy man. I’m very happy now.
Slowtwitch: How did it all come together for you again?
Rutger Beke: I had a very good winter. Because I had good training, I am very anxious to race. But nobody believed me. Because nobody saw any good results for me this year. Two weeks before defending my title at Ironman Arizona, I had a lung infection. So I had a bad race. The problem was, Kona was bad. Arizona was bad. And when I went to Ironman France in Nice, my training had been bad so I just slogged through.
Slowtwitch: You still had to qualify for Kona, your best race?
Rutger Beke: I was very lucky. There were just three slots and I finished 5th. But two men turned down their slots. During the race, I knew Marcel Zamora and another man weren’t going to Kona. With 3 kilometers to go, a fellow pro passed me. I knew he wanted his ticket to Kona. He passed me for five seconds and I just said to myself ‘That isn’t going to happen.’ I just started sprinting and I never looked back.
Slowtwitch: How did that affect your confidence?
Rutger Beke: Yeah, it helped a lot knowing I was still capable of doing that.
Slowtwitch: But still you had to have a good final 8 weeks of preparation?
Rutger Beke: Ten days after Nice, I started training and I could not believe how good I was feeling. Then I did Antwerp 70.3 and I had a puncture after one kilometer. My race was over! Again, I told everybody I was in very good shape. I told people don’t worry. I knew I was in good shape. But I could not show it. Then I went to my usual training camp in the Pyrenees where Mark Allen used to train. Three days after I returned home, I went to an Olympic distance race in Belgium.
Slowtwitch: What did that show you?
Rutger Beke: Frederick Van Lierde was 6th. Bert Jammaer was 5th. Luc Van Lierde was 3rd. And Axel Zeebroek, who finished 13th at the Olympics, was 2nd. I’m not the best swimmer, so I passed everyone on the bike. That gave me a lot of confidence. I biked right through them. And I had the fastest run split, too.
Slowtwitch: What did that tell you?
Rutger Beke: I also learned a big lesson. There was a lot of media four years ago when I fought and won my case against the false positive. Now, I’m at the point I just don’t care what they have to say any more. I don’t even read any more what they say about me. If you don’t like me, you don’t like me. If you don’t believe me, you don’t believe me..
Slowtwitch: What else is different?
Rutger Beke: Another change for me in Kona is that this time I am really relaxed. I finally reached the time I just don’t care what outsiders say. My friends and Sophie are the only opinions that count for me.
Slowtwitch: Is it nice to come to Kona under the radar?
Rutger Beke: I like being a stealth competitor. That was the way I got second in 2003. Nobody knew who I was. Like Tim DeBoom last year. The only problem is in Belgium. The guys who saw the Olympic distance race know I am good now.
So, I told Sophie ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done that race. Because then nobody in Belgium would know I am capable of racing well here.’
