Dieter Comhair, from Belgium, has been racing as a pro since 2023. Prior to triathlon, Dieter was a rower, so he knows how to suffer. He also knows brutal: racing Ironman Lanzarote, Ironman Nice, and Ironman Hawaii as an age-grouper. Can’t wait to see what he can do here at Challenge Roth on Sunday.
@challengeroth
Breakfast with Bob: Challenge Roth Edition. Brought to you by HOKA, SFuels, Master Spas, deboer wetsuits, Premium Plus Sports, and the Challenged Athletes Foundation
[Music] n [Music] he everybody welcome back to breakfast with Bob challenge Roth Edition my name is Bob babbit brought to you by Hoka fly human fly s fuels right fuel right time Master Spas theor wets suits and of course premium Sports in our challenge athletes Foundation our next guest a young man who I have not had a chance to chat with before deer comir from Belgium how you doing deer I’m fine M thank you thank you for having me it’s it’s always a treat to to meet somebody who I haven’t met before so when when did you get in the sport and what were you in other sports before uh this is my sixth year I’m doing Trion second year as a professional athlete and before Trion I was uh for three years a rower you were a rower cam Worf like cam indeed and uh before that I was a soccer player okay and Rowing I mean nobody hurts more than a rower were you doing individual or twos or uh in uh an boat with eight people in it actually with nine eight people that would row and uh the one in front steering the boat I was actually I just watched that movie boys in the boat that you guys suffer man yeah it’s uh quite tough sport as well I remember talking to cam about that and he was just saying the hard part is you can be great but if your buddy misses a stroke you’re it’s not all about you and he likes the fact that this is from coming from that rowing background do you like the fact that it’s all on you yeah it’s a quite technical Sport and you depend on your team as well it’s really te if anyone of them makes a technical mistake it affects the whole boat right and in Tron yeah it’s it’s all by yourself you’re the only one to blame if something goes wrong right and that’s what’s cool so you like you started out as an age grouper yeah and when did you feel you had what it took to be a pro um the last two years as an age grouper I started to win my age group most of the times and then in my last year it went better and in the overall classification I came closer and closer to the professional athletes and that was when I started to think maybe it’s time to make the next step right towards the professional field good for you and I look at so since you’ve been a pro so 23 and 24 yeah 23 n9th to 70.3 lons are and second at 70.3 Swansea uh you know you get on the podium a couple times that had to feel good yeah that was amazing I didn’t expect to be on the podium already in my first uh season as a professional athlete what did you learn in that first year as a pro cuz a lot of times people can do races as age grouper and they go oh look at my time compared to that guy’s time but it’s different it’s completely different racing as an age grouper is more doing a time trial by yourself whilst racing uh amongst the professional field it’s more really racing you’re racing you’re with Magnus you’re with Patrick Lang yeah it’s really big names where you can race against and I love the racing part more than doing a time trial by myself yeah yeah yeah yeah that is very cool and then this year uh fourth uh at one of the challenge races yeah and so it the learnings from year one to year two how have you improved over from the first the second year to the first year mainly made some improvements on my swimming because that was my weakest discipline and uh trying to break Gap to the front group with my biking my running has been my strength and that was okay but if I always have to follow the group and Chase it’s quite hard to get close to the front so have you done as a pro have you done a full uh not as a professional I have done as an amateur n Lanza and Hawaii oh oh you did Hawaii and nce and Lanza right so you know brutal yeah I know quite some iconic races also the year I N was the one with the heat wve in when they had to shorten the cor as well so I haven’t done any easy full distance races yet no and people don’t understand lonzer is the most brutal Iron Man that’s out there you you’re climbing into a headwind yeah it’s uh it feels like not moving on that island uh oh and there’s no there is there a tree out there I have not seen any shade uh no I think maybe there’s one or two trees on the whole island but there is no shade nothing to cover from the wind it’s quite brutal my God so okay so you’ve done three brutal iron distance races is now you come here this is a fast course but it’s also it’s challenging yeah I uh I like to do some challenging race with the best professional athletes as well to compete I did some uh Recon of the of the field and the course looks fantastic the road surface is spectacular it’s amazing the crowds will draw you up solar Hill so that won’t be of impact but people think it’s all solar Hill there’s other climbs in that course there are plenty of other climbs as well on the race course and they’re quite Punchy uh but yeah if you look at the the bikes place from previous years it’s a really fast bike7 yeah you look at that aming when you go into this I mean you’re so new as a pro do you try to key off of one other athlete who sort of has a similar skill set or you just focus on you uh I’ll be just focusing on me for me it will be the most important thing of the race will be the swim trying to make the the group and then it becomes an individual race for me is it helpful for you if it’s a wets suit swim definitely a wet is it a wet suit swim have they said yet they haven’t set yet but normally it’s going to be a wets suit swim with how the temperatures were looking but you never know yeah last year was and then and the Magnus was right there out of the water and game over yeah that made made a big difference um so what’s the rest of your season um after this one I take a short break to prepare for the second half of the Season where Tapo will be the Big Goal the second goal of the Season yeah that is very now what was the experience like it’s lonzer I know is brutal nce I know it’s brutal but being in the iconic Iron Man world championship course as an age grouper and just taking all that in how special was that it was uh quite special to experience it sadly enough I had a dnf at that race what uh I had some uh problems with my truits just before the start um I found out 5 minutes before we had to go into the water that my Zipper was broken from my dry suit so I had to use safety pins to did they cut you they didn’t cut me but they didn’t keep it together either they kept it together but I had to tighten it up quite a lot like it felt like couldn’t breath at all oh my God swim was okay but halfway on the bike I couldn’t breathe I couldn’t eat I couldn’t drink and oh my God started hyperventilating on the run so I had to pull out after uh just when you climbed up uh towards the highway yeah oh my God so right there in the early W so you have unfinished business there I hav’t finished business there yeah I definitely want to go back there so the guys you rode with back in the day when they hear that you’re now a professional try athlete what are they thinking uh they think it’s amazing in the beginning they were always saying yeah you’re quite good and growing quite fast we’ll see what it brings in the future but they were quite excited when they hear the news when I turned Pro and I mean the suffering that you do in in in rowing yeah you find that that translates to what you’re doing now uh it translates it’s completely different rowing is six six to 7 minutes really suffering and I haven’t suffered that much yet in Tri it’s except when your squin suit was too tight yeah that but that’s another kind of suffering but Tron is also completely suffering going all the way to the end but it’s a longer kind of suffering than than rowing the hard part is you know it’s like you wanted if you’re dropping out a coner you want it to be like you know I had this horrific flat and I couldn’t change it or the car came on the course a moto yeah my my skin suit was too tight I couldn’t that’s a toughy that’s a really toughy that’s why now always I bring two truits with me to not uh have that problem again uh bring two truits with you I actually I’ve heard that before where you know a lot of guys would carry a a SE SE second set of goggles and keep it in their in their swimsuit because you never know yeah you never know but at some point you can bring everything uh a second thing of it so it’s yeah yeah good for you deer a pleasure to to get to meet you and so Tapo is the Big Goal at the end of the season yeah first this one and then Tapo will be the second big goal of the Season yeah that is very good now at some point you want to do t00 as well and balance that I would love to raise that distance as well but need some results and you first need some results and be higher up in the rankings and in the future if they offer a wild card of or if I make a chance to go there I will definitely go I would love to race that’s really racing against the best in the world and that’s yeah why I do this sport so as somebody from Belgium and you’re do you’ve got Luke Van lde and and Freddy van lde and Bart arnut and you know so many great Legends of the sport now being a rower did you even know any of those guys uh when I just started doing Trion it was when I still was doing rowing as well I immediately knew the names yes the big names Luke Fred and then yeah also following trial on seeing Peter and Bart becoming yeah really big names in the sport as well very cool well thank you so much for taking time for having me both nice to meet you deer comir has been our guest again breakfast with Bob challenge Roth Edition hold on everybody we will be right back