Ironmanlife: Zamora goes for history

Kevin Mackinnon catches up with Marcel Zamora and his quest for a fifth-straight title in Nice

Can you imagine getting yourself in peak shape for the same weekend ever year for five years in a row? That's what Marcel Zamora is trying to do on Sunday - if he is on his game he'll join some pretty elite company in the Ironman world as one of a very few athletes who have won the same Ironman race five years in a row.

The other three men who have won five straight Ironman titles in succession are Mark Allen (Ford Ironman World Championship), Cameron Brown (New Zealand) and Chris McCormack (Australia). On the women’s front, Joanna Lawn won six-straight times in New Zealand (she came back to win her seventh title this year after finishing second in 2009) and Lisa Bentley won five straight Australia titles, too.

(OK, all of this pales in comparison to Allen’s 10-straight Nice titles from the 80s and 90s, but I’m going to move on from that because 1) Mark Allen isn’t like the rest of us mortals and 2) Nice wasn’t an Ironman back then and this column is called “Ironmanlife.”)

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, more on Zamora.

The Spaniard competes for a French triathlon team, which is one reason they love him here in Nice, but the fact that he’s chasing history adds a lot to his popularity, too. (OK, it also doesn’t hurt that he’s a genuinely great guy – approachable, easygoing and always willing to take time to chat with the press or fans.)

Zamora is all-too-aware of how important it would be to win a fifth straight Ironman France Nice title, which is why he’s worked his tail off to try and make it happen on Sunday.

“This year I have been training really hard on the bike and have been putting in a lot of quality for the run,” he says.” I think I’m ready to have a great run this weekend – maybe the best run of my career.”

He’s also fully aware that none of his competition are ready to hand the title over, either. The word here in Nice is that Olivier Marceau is planning to try and get a huge lead off the bike.

“There are a lot of strong swimmers in the field this year, so I think I will be behind by two or three minutes,” Zamora says. “My biking is very strong, but when athletes are in the lead here it is hard for me to make up much time. A lot of times people come off the bike ahead of me, but my mindset is really strong. I know it’s a long race – it’s always possible to catch them.”

You better believe that. Zamora ran a 2:25 marathon earlier this year and feels like he’s ready to go in the 2:40 range here on Sunday. He’s run 2:43 along the Promenade des Anglais in the past – he’s probably not kidding when he says he wants to join Allen, Gerrit Schellens and Luc van Lierde in the 2:40-or-less club. What’s even crazier is the fact that he’s become renowned for tracking down his competition along during the marathon while seeming to enjoy the extreme heat that slows down the rest of the field.


Zamora feels like this course is perfectly suited to him. Since he only started swimming when he was 16, he typically trails out of the water, but once on the bike the long climbs are tailor-made for him. He says this course is more like the kind of riding seen in pro bike races than other Ironman races, which suits his smaller body size. (More like pro cycling? You think? The course here in Nice goes over many of the roads and climbs used in the Tour de France.) Add to that the fact that the temperatures here in Nice are very similar to those he experiences at home in Barcelona, and you have a course perfectly suited to the fleet-footed, diminutive Spaniard.

While he’s raced in Kona, Zamora has struggled at the Ford Ironman World Championship in years past. His best finish is 20th and, while he feels a top-10 is attainable, he’s found that his sponsors are much more interested in seeing him win in Spain or France. Those sponsors would dearly love to see him take a fifth title on Sunday, as would Zamora, who is all-too-aware that he could step into the history books if he can pull off the win. While he might not be close to Allen’s impressive Nice record, he knows a fifth crown would be a huge achievement.

“Every time I win here, I think about Mark Allen winning ten times,” he says. “It would be very difficult to repeat that. I’ll be thrilled if I can win one more!”

He’s not the only one who will be thrilled. Zamora might be Spanish, but he’ll have a lot of support here from the French crowd. They love their history here in Nice, and he could very well make some on Sunday.

We’ll have live coverage of Sunday’s Ironman France Nice here on Ironman.com, including text updates, photos, athlete tracking and live video.

You can reach Kevin Mackinnon at kevin@ironman.com
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