Ironman 70.3 Aix-En-Provence

And here we are, ladies and gentlemen, in the magnificent Aix-en-Provence — what a city this is, what a jewel in the crown of southern France! Just look at it, would you, as we roll beneath the plane trees of the glorious Cours Mirabeau, a boulevard fit for kings and indeed for champions.

You can almost feel the centuries of French and Roman history breathing out of every honey-coloured stone, the art, the culture, the sheer Provençal splendour of it all.

And what a race we have in store today — a course that drinks deeply from this stunning corner of la belle France, sweeping through sleepy little villages where the locals are out in their numbers, climbing towards those distant mountain horizons, plunging through forests of pine and oak. Truly, my goodness, it doesn’t get any better than this.