Lucy Charles-Barclay to race at WTCS Leeds

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.

 

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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.