Lucy Charles-Barclay produced another swim masterclass as she made the perfect start in her bid to repeat her 2023 victory at the IRONMAN World Championship, the last time it was held in Kona.

The Briton went wire-to-wire two years ago when she set a new overall course record in Hawaii to finally win the sport’s biggest race after four successive second places.

And she wasted little time in carving out a big advantage after the cannon sent one of the greatest-ever women’s fields on their way at 06:25 local time.

Statement start from LCB

Charles-Barclay opted for the middle of the field at the start, with a little bit of swell about after a mixed morning of weather – a couple of hours of rain and then a bit of a breeze.

And within the first 200 metres of the 3.8km she had already put daylight between herself and the rest.

A couple of metres soon became 25 metres but plenty of jostling was happening in behind.

LCB flipped onto her back for a few strokes to see what was unfolding in behind and she must have liked what she saw.

Haley Chura was leading what looked a 10-15 woman chase group and of the big-race favourites, Chura’s fellow Americans Taylor Knibb and 2022 winner Chelsea Sodaro were in that pack.

In the next group were reigning champion Laura Philipp and Kat Matthews, who were one-two in Nice last year.

Also there were dark horses Lisa Perterer (AUT) and Solveig Løvseth (NOR) who have both leapt to full-distance prominence this year.

At the halfway mark, Charles-Barclay was fractionally ahead of her own swim record pace (48:14) in 23:46.

Philipp and Matthews six minutes back

As the sun started to rise after the turn it was choppier out there and it looked like hard work for everyone even though there was a bit of a tail current.

But Charles-Barclay, who almost qualified for the Olympics as a 1,500m swimmer for Team GB before moving to triathlon, was in splendid isolation.

However the tricky conditions pushed a swim record out of reach and when she exited the water the clock was at 49:29, though that was actually 10 seconds quicker than her 2023 swim time.

Two years ago it was Chura in second and history repeated itself there too – on that occasion she was 1:40 back and here it was 1:29.

Holly Lawrence, the 2016 IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion, was in third on what was her maiden Kona appearance and back racing just a year after giving birth to her first child.

That chase group had thinned down to seven athletes but it still included Knibb and Sodaro.

So far there were incredible parallels to 2023, would it continue to pan out that way?

Meanwhile there was a potentially super-strong bike group in behind, with Philipp, Matthews and Løvseth all closely matched.

However they already had more than six minutes to make up on Charles-Barclay.

But there would be many more twists and turns to come – click here to read all about how it panned out…