Chelsea Sodaro, one of two former Kona winners in the field, was a relatively early withdrawal from the women’s IRONMAN World Championship.
Sodaro claimed a sensational victory on her debut in Hawaii in 2022 when she ran through the field on the marathon for a famous triumph.
Things have been challenging since then for the American but this season her results were trending in the right direction – second places at 70.3 Eagleman and Pennsylvania followed by a third spot at IRONMAN Sweden, which qualified her for Kona.
All change on the bike
And all was going swimmingly early on – she was in the chase group behind Lucy Charles-Barclay exiting the water, around 90 seconds behind.
But early on the bike she started to lose time rapidly.
Having come out of T1 1:21 adrift, she was 2:55 back after eight miles and that quickly escalated.
Game over for Chelsea
Hawi was the most northerly point of the bike course and before that came the news that Sodaro was out of the race.
Reports from on course suggested she might have had nutrition challenges.
Meanwhile up front it was Charles-Barclay and Taylor Knibb who were pushing well clear of their rivals.
However they too would end up watching from the sidelines on the run as the race came to a dramatic conclusion – read all about that here.
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