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Kona Coverage: Lucy Charles-Barclay holds onto lead with fastest ride of the day

A marathon is all that separates Lucy Charles-Barclay from her maiden Ironman world title

Photo by: Kevin Mackinnon
October 14, 2023
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Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay led the way out of the water for the pro women in Kona, but as every triathlete knows, you cannot win the race in the swim. Although she entered T1 with a minute and a half lead, she still had plenty of work to do, and after posting the fastest ride of the day, she was still in first place. With close to four minutes separating her and second-place Taylor Knibb of the U.S., a 42-kilometre run was all that stood between her and her first Ironman world title.

A fast first 50

With four second-place finishes in a row in Kona, Charles-Barclay has had her share of near-misses at the Ironman World Championship. Ever since joining the pro women’s circuit, she has been the best swimmer by far, and thanks to her speed in the water, she has found herself leading in Kona every time she has raced there. However, time after time, she has been caught and forced to settle for second place.

She started the ride on Saturday with a 90-second lead over the first chase pack—a group that featured Knibb, the two-time defending 70.3 world champion and Kona rookie. After a slower transition than her fellow chasers, Knibb fell back to two minutes behind Charles-Barclay, but within the first 20 kilometres she not only passed everyone to climb into second place, but she also cut the gap down to 1:40.

Over the following 20 kilometres, Knibb slowly chipped away at Charles-Barclay’s lead, getting to within 1:31 by the 40-kilometre checkpoint. Suddenly, though, Charles-Barclay laid down the hammer, powering forward and extending her lead over Knibb back to two minutes. After 50 kilometres on the bike course, it was Charles-Barclay and Knibb sitting comfortably in first and second, then a group of three—Americans Lauren Brandon and Haley Chura and New Zealand’s Rebecca Clarke—a full five minutes back of the lead.

Charles-Barclay extended her lead on the bike in Kona. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Behind that chase pack was five-time Ironman world champion Daniela Ryf of Switzerland sitting 6:20 back, 2022 Kona champion Chelsea Sodaro of the U.S. 6:35 back and 2019 champion Anne Haug of Germany 6:42 back. With all of the heavy hitters well behind her, Charles-Barclay found herself in an amazing position at the head of the race.

Widening the gap

Between the 50- and 80-kilometre checkmarks, Charles-Barclay put another 26 seconds between herself and Knibb. Their gaps on the rest of the field only continued to grow during this stretch on the course, with Charles-Barclay riding seven minutes clear of third place, which happened to be Ryf, who really got to work on the bike after the first third of the ride.

While she did a tremendous job of catching, passing and then gapping her competitors (by the halfway point on the ride, Ryf was 30 seconds ahead of fourth-place Lisa Norden of Sweden), Ryf failed to make up any time on Charles-Barclay or Knibb, and after 95 kilometres of riding, she trailed by close to eight minutes. Even with such a large gap over Ryf and a healthy lead on Knibb, Charles-Barclay was not going to relax, knowing she still had plenty of work to do before hitting the run course.

Coming into T2

Over the latter half of the ride, Charles-Barclay kept on putting time into the rest of the field. There was a stretch just after the halfway mark when Knibb made up a bit of ground (she got the gap down to 2:15), but Charles-Barclay responded in prompt and commanding fashion, building the lead back up, first to 2:40 and then to more than three minutes. With just a few kilometres to go in the ride, Charles-Barclay was a little under three minutes ahead of Knibb, but after a tremendous push in the final four kilometres before T2, she extended her lead to almost four minutes.

Meanwhile, several minutes behind both Charles-Barclay and Knibb, the fight for third place saw a lot of action. After charging into podium position over the first half of the bike, Ryf seemingly hit a wall, and she eventually faded to more than 11 minutes back of the lead. Taking her place at the front of the chase group were Norden, American Jocelyn McCauley, and Germany’s Laura Philipp. This trio remained together for a while, but by T2 they had separated a bit, with Philipp in third, McCauley in fourth 12 seconds back and Norden in fifth. They were all more than 10 minutes behind Charles-Barclay.

She still has a long way to go before the finish line, but Charles-Barclay has put herself in the best position to finally climb up to the top step of the podium. To follow along, watch the live broadcast on the Ironman website.