Inspired to do her first Ironman by a fellow Army officer, Kat Matthews has quickly ascended to the top levels of the sport

Kat Matthews will be one of two professional women racing tomorrow who are from the British Army, and it turns out the other woman, Rosie Wild, is the reason Matthews did her first Ironman.

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“I went out to watch her at Ironman Talinn a few years ago, in 2019, and I saw Rosie just rock up without really preparing for it,” Matthews said. “I think she ate a cereal bar for the whole day. And she just joked around and finished in nine hours and something. The whole day, I was just in awe of her resilience.”

Matthews would finish fourth at Ironman Western Australia later that year and was soon launched into an incredible triathlon journey that has her sitting at the top levels of the sport. In 2020 she won Ironman Florida, and in 2022 finished second at the Ironman World Championship in St. George, Utah. Heading into Kona as one of the pre-race favourites, she was hit by a car while training in Texas, and, amongst many other injuries, broke her neck.

At yesterday’s press conference Matthews talked about having achieved many of her goals already – most related to just getting back to the highest levels of the sport after the crash in 2022.

“I’m not a very spiritual person, but I feel so grounded in myself in terms of the success of the sport and the pathway and the process and all of that at the moment I’m getting so much sort of satisfaction out of the lifestyle and the daily success and I feel grounded in those daily objectives I guess,” she said. “It’s not meant as a caveat or an excuse, but I’ve only been doing the sport for a few years,  with 2020 being sort of written off, 2021 being half a year, 2022 I got the second in the world champs, but then had the accident, and 2023, even though it looks on paper like great season it was, it was challenging, recovering from those injuries.

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“I’m less stressed about the outcome of winning now, and that might change,” she continued. “You know, it might be different in in December in Taupo, and it might be different next year, but for this race, I just feel very grounded and calm with the objective.”

Matthews also acknowledges just how challenging her schedule has been in 2024, and how well the year has gone considering she was pursuing both the Ironman Pro Series and T100 World Triathlon Tour.

“I think I was really excited by the idea of the challenge of the year … combining all of the races,” she said. “And I didn’t have to put any effort into the planning of that. My husband, Mark, did it, and we came up with a great plan. We discussed it with my coach back in December and (decided) ‘this is workable.’ And I think it took the pressure off, I think perhaps I had ‘tunnel visioned’ on the one world championship last year.”

Despite a calf injury at T100 Miami and an unfortunate DQ at Ironman Hamburg (she made a pass in a non-passing zone), Matthews is in a position for a top finish in both series.

“To be honest, it’s worked out better than I expected, mainly with the T100 series,” she said. “The Ironman Pro series is is going as expected, in a way, but the two T100 series races, I’m really quite excited by the results that I’ve had there. Now, genuinely without a sort of training for it or tapering for them.”

Matthews arrives in Nice as one of the potential champions, and a top finish tomorrow would put her in the driver’s seat to take the overall Ironman Pro Series title. She’ll also remain in the hunt for a top finish in the T100 series, too – next week she’ll be racing in Ibiza.