Lucy Charles rolls the dice in hunt for the Ironman World Championship title

After finishing second two years in a row to Daniela Ryf, Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay, who we featured on the cover of our July issue this year, decided she was going to take a chance and try to push clear on the bike at this year’s race in hopes it might get her the elusive win.

Charles-Barclay’s strategy was most-likely designed as her best option to finally beat four-time champ Ryf, but in the end the Swiss star struggled through the day, which meant Charles-Barclay found herself trying to hold off a group of women who came off the bike in close proximity. That group was about eight minutes behind her into T2.

In that group, though, was eventual champion Anne Haug, who’s 2:51 marathon was more than enough to launch her past Charles-Barclay for the win. The former British national team swimmer was also caught and passed by Australian Sarah Crowley, but she managed to re-pass Crowley to nail her third straight runner-up finish here in Kona.

Charles-Barclay led the way out of the water thanks to a super-fast 49:02 swim, followed that up with a 4:47:21 bike ride, then ran a 3:06:00 marathon to finish in 8:46:44.

We caught up with the always upbeat and always classy Charles-Barclay after her race yesterday.