Lucy Charles-Barclay to race at WTCS Leeds
Ironman star to take on draft-legal World Triathlon Championship Series race

It is a move that seems absolutely crazy and totally makes sense at the same time – Ironman star Lucy Charles-Barclay will be making her World Triathlon Championship Series debut at the upcoming race in Leeds on June 6. Charles-Barclay has been among the biggest names in women’s Ironman racing for the last four years, with three-runner up finishes at the Ironman World Championship to go along with a win at Challenge Roth, the Ironman African Championship and three-straight titles at the Challenge Championship.
This year, though, Charles-Barclay has shown just how talented she is with some impressive shorter races. She took second at the Super League Triathlon Arena Games London race, then followed that up with a runner-up finish at the British Swimming Trials 1,500 m race. That event served as a return to the 27-year-old’s swimming roots – in 2012 she was in the hunt for a spot on Great Britain’s open-water swim squad for the Olympic Games in London.
Charles-Barclay hinted in an Instagram post that there was an exciting race coming up on her calendar.
View this post on Instagram
Based on her results so far this year, Charles-Barclay will likely make a mark in the race in Leeds – it’s hard to imagine she won’t come out of the water either in the lead or with the lead pack, and she certainly has the cycling skills to be part of a breakaway group. While Bermuda’s Flora Duffy isn’t in the field for Leeds, American Taylor Knibb, who used a breakaway on the bike to take the WTCS Yokohama race, will be – it’s exciting to think of Charles-Barclay and Knibb working together to try and breakaway from the field in Leeds.