She may not have achieved her ultimate goal of winning a first World Championship title, but as the scorching Hawaii sun set on Kona, Kat Matthews accepted there was plenty in her performance to feel proud of.
The 34-year-old British athlete finished just 35 seconds behind Norwegian winner Solveig Løvseth as she secured an incredible third runner-up spot on three different World Championship courses.
For Kona 2025, you can also add St George 2021 and Nice 2024 – a level of impressive consistency which will surely, one day, see her crossing the line first and taking a deserved winner’s spot on the podium.
So close to achieving dream
There was no doubting the pride in her voice at the post-race press conference as she spoke of how she coped with the brutal heat and humidity of the Big Island, and how she very nearly did enough to turn silver into gold.
Indeed, Løvseth even admitted that had the race gone on for a couple more kilometres, then she would have been caught, such was the pace at which Matthews finished the race.
“It was a fantastic experience to be in a race where everyone was really having to push to their absolute limits,” Kat said. “I think it was really quite spectacular, what Solveig was able to pull off today. I am proud of my performance. I’m really happy to finish strongly. I experienced the challenge of IRONMAN for sure today.
“It was maybe at the 6K or 7K point, and (husband) Mark was like, ‘you’re going to finish about 90 seconds behind Solveig’. And he was like, ‘but you could try a bit harder’. So I really leaned into my muscular fatigue at that point. And I gave it everything.
‘Best I could have given today’
“The last two kilometres pace probably suggested I had a bit more to give, but I definitely feel like that was my best performance that I could have given today. I knew that my closing kilometres were very fast, but I didn’t know that I was that close to Solveig.”
Mentally strong, Matthews will certainly take the positives out of what is her third runner-up finish in five years, and few would bet against her returning next year and finally going one place better.
“I wasn’t worried about the splits or what anyone else was doing,” she said. “I somehow found a mindset coming here to just think that this is all about my own best personal performance that matters, and it’s sort of irrelevant what everyone else is doing.
“I was focused on doing my best, and I just kept staying grounded in that.
“Finishing as runner-up on three different courses is something to be proud of. I think it’s perhaps a case of just embracing the challenge, whatever it may be, not saying, ‘this course suits me, this course doesn’t’. It’s more about getting as fit as I can, and attacking the challenge that’s in front of me.”
That challenge of winning a worldtTitle may remain, but Matthews will rightly look back on her Kona 2025 experience with pride… and will once again start as one of the favourites when she lines up again in 12 months’ time.
Are we in a triathlon boom, or hurtling towards burnout? Laura Siddall on the growth of the sport
