Kona Preview: Daniela Ryf goes for a 5-peat

It’s hard to imagine any other pre-race favorite in the women’s race at the Ironman World Championship other than Switzerland’s Daniela Ryf. She’s won four straight titles after finishing second in 2014, her first Kona appearance. She’s dominated the Ironman and Ironman 70.3 world championships for the last half-decade, with only that runner-up finish in Kona and a fourth-place finish at the Ironman 70.3 worlds on the Sunshine Coast in 2016 marring a perfect record of wins – she’s captured five 70.3 world titles and four Kona titles in that time frame.

In other words, it’s her race to lose on the Big Island.

One athlete we at Triathlon Magazine Canada figured might offer some competition to the Swiss star, Mirinda Carfrae, who we featured on the cover of our September issue, offered up some disappointing news via social media yesterday – she had a crash a few weeks ago and is dealing with a fractured radius. While she intends to be at the start line in Kona, it’s hard to imagine that she’ll be ready to compete at the highest level coming off weeks of one-arm swimming.

 

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Current swim situation. It isn’t pretty , basically single arm freestyle. You see I managed to take a little tumble a couple of weeks ago & fracture my radius. First fracture since I was like 5 years old. Anyway I’m doing everything I can to heal up so I can get on that start line. That one start line that I’ve been dreaming about all year. KONA. If you want to hear the full sob story checkout our YouTube show. #imstillracing #sticksandstones

A post shared by Rinny (@mirindacarfrae) on Sep 22, 2019 at 8:39pm PDT

It’s not as though Carfrae is the only woman with the potential to push Ryf in Kona, though. Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay, who we featured on our July cover of TMC, has been the runner up in Kona the last two years and has been steadily improving, especially on the run. A former national-team swimmer, Charles-Barclay routinely leads the women out of the water and is a formidable cyclist. An improved run will only make her that much more competitive.

The list of talented contenders also includes Australian Sarah Crowley, who finished third in Kona two years ago and sixth last year. Germany’s Anne Haug, third last year and another super-fast runner. American Sarah True, fourth last year, in theory is another contender, but a challenging qualifying year might have her a little tired heading into Hawaii.

Canadian women

After Ironman Canada there could have been three Canadian women on their way to Kona this year, but Heather Wurtele declined her spot. Jen Annett managed to nail her trip to Kona with her runner-up finish to Wurtele, which seemed all-too-appropriate after Annett missed a Kona slot by one place with her third-place finish in Frankfurt. Always strong on the bike, Annett will no-doubt enjoy another fast day along the Queen K in October.

The first Canadian woman to nail her slot in Kona was Sue Huse, another of the impressive super moms who lives in Montana. She won the swim-shortened Ironman Taiwan last year.

Last year’s eighth-place finisher on the Big Island, Angela Naeth, won’t be back in Kona this year after a series of brave qualifying attempts after a bike crash sidelined her in May.

Here’s a list of the women’s qualifiers for this year’s Ironman World Championship compiled by Thorsten Radde of Trirating.com including the races where they qualified.