IRONMAN World Championship Nice head to head: Lucy Charles-Barclay vs Anne Haug

The final countdown is on with the 2024 women’s IRONMAN World Championship in Nice, France just days away.

And while the over 50-strong field of PRO women will all be battling hard for the ultimate prize in long course triathlon – the IRONMAN World Champion title – there are a few notable names who are the hot favourites to take the crown.

TRI247’s Jenny Lucas-Hill takes a look at how the key contenders stack up head-to-head to try and predict how those battles could play out on the Cote d’Azur this weekend, starting with two former IRONMAN World Champions: Lucy Charles-Barclay and Anne Haug.

Lucy Charles Barclay vs Anne Haug – Which is most likely to win the IRONMAN World Championship Nice?

We’ve seen Lucy and Anne battle it out many a time against the lava field backdrop of Kona. 2019 saw Haug storm past Charles-Barclay on the run to take the victory. The 2022 edition saw a 2-3 finish for Lucy and Anne as Chelsea Sodaro pipped them to the post. And in 2023, LCB’s fairytale finally came true as she held off Haug for an epic gun-to-tape victory.

It is no wonder then, that the 2024 edition of Lucy vs Anne is hotly anticipated. But what sort of form do the race favourites bring to the start line?

Lucy Charles Barclay 2024 performances and form

There was a degree of uncertainty for LCB at the start of 2024, having spent the winter months rehabbing the Achilles injury she picked up while running to victory in Kona. Initially, the Brit had her sights set on the T100 series as a primary focus. In fact, she didn’t plan to race the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice at all.

However a better than expected start to the season, with 2^nd place finishes at the Miami and Singapore T100 races, saw Lucy take a U-turn, deciding to validate her spot for Nice. And she secured that validation on the precise course she’ll be taking on this Sunday, toeing the start line at the IRONMAN Nice open race back in June. As far as dress rehearsals go, it was a pretty successful outing with convincing victory. Though it’s worth caveating that with the fact that none of the other key World Championship contenders stood alongside her on the start line.

A heartbreaking DNF at her home race, London T100, proved that the mighty LCB isn’t bullet proof – the injury she picked up in Kona still requiring careful management. Speaking to Bob Babbitt earlier this week she described it as “a bit of a jigsaw puzzle and if I get it wrong it’s really unhappy, if I get it right then it’s great.”

That dress rehearsal race in Nice earlier in the year should have given Lucy an extra confidence boost for taking on that ‘out of the comfort zone’ bike course. The question will be whether she can piece together the jigsaw puzzle enough to hold off the charge of Haug out on the run course.

Anne Haug 2024 performances and form

It was a somewhat shaky start to 2024 for Anne Haug. Despite being a contracted athlete, she was missing from the Miami, Singapore and San Francisco T100 start lines as she looked to get to the bottom of health issues.

But a first hit out of the year at IRONMAN Lanzarote, where she took the win, showed that while she might have been down, she certainly wasn’t out. And she certainly had the fight to take on a notoriously tough IRONMAN course – promising for that lumpy Nice bike course. Though, just as we did with LCB’s Nice victory, we do need to caveat the Lanzarote win with the fact that again, it wasn’t the most stacked of fields.

The same can’t be said for Challenge Roth though, where Haug not only held off the likes of Laura Philipp and Els Visser with almost 12 minutes to spare, she also broke Daniela Ryf’s previous record, setting a new world fastest 140.6 time (8:02:38). If she brings that sort of form to the start line in Nice, Haug could prove unstoppable.

Anne has also had a dress rehearsal of sorts for the world championship race in Nice, participating in IRONMAN 70.3 Nice earlier in the year – technically as an ‘Age Grouper’ as there was no PRO field. That degree of familiarity will be an advantage on race day.

Verdict

The IRONMAN World Championship Nice will be the first time we really get to see a proper battle between Charles-Barclay and Haug in 2024. Both of them lined up for the London T100, but Lucy Charles-Barclay’s unfortunate DNF prevented a head-to-head battle on the run.

We’ve become accustomed to seeing LCB take the race by the horns in Kona. But as the women head to Nice for the Championship race for the first time since the decision to split the race locations, the question will be how much that drastically different course profile shakes up the race dynamics. Earlier in the year, the naysayers suggested that Lucy’s previous decision to side step Nice was because of the technical bike course. So she will be fired up to prove the doubters wrong and show she can dominate away from the long straights of the Queen K. The W-shaped swim course in Nice may also give the Brit an additional advantage, allowing Charles-Barclay to pull ahead while slower or middle-of-the-pack swimmers get caught up at the buoys.

Lucy will surely be wanting to get as much real estate between her and Haug on the bike to hold her off on the run – especially if that Achilles issue is in the back of her mind – but will doing so put too much fatigue in her legs?

While I don’t want to bet against the strength and tenacity of Charles-Barclay as she looks to defend her title, I think Haug’s experience could see her staying closer than usual during the bike, putting her in a prime spot to reclaim her 2019 IM World Champion crown before the closing stages of the run course. But she’ll need to have a near-perfect day to break the tape ahead of the near-indomitable Charles-Barclay.