Swiss superstar Julie Derron will miss the upcoming IRONMAN World Championship.
Last year’s individual silver medallist at the Paris Olympics has made a stunning transition to middle and long-distance racing.
She gave the near-unbeatable world #1 Taylor Knibb plenty to think about when runner-up to her in three successive T100 races after Paris – Ibiza, Lake Las Vegas and the grand finale in Dubai.
And then she inflicted a first T100 defeat on her in San Francisco earlier this year before stepping up in trip and winning IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz by nearly 40 minutes.
That qualified her for Kona in what was only her second full-distance race and she could have been a real threat to all in Hawaii with her blistering run speed, for which she’s ranked second in the world, as she is in the overall standings.
‘Too big a risk’
But almost exactly a week out from next Saturday’s race (11th October) came a shock announcement on Instagram.
Derron said: This week I’ve had to make the difficult decision not to race the IRONMAN World Championships in Kona.
“I believed I could be ready but I’ve been struggling with health issues since my crash in August and to race an Ironman at this point would be too big a risk in the long term.
“I am very disappointed as I was really looking forward to the experience and to racing the best women in the world. But for now I will focus on getting healthy and will be cheering extra hard for my partner in crime @nina_derron . She’ll do us both proud on the big island 🥰
“I am very motivated to get to the race next year 💭 “
A race for the ages
The crash Derron refers to came on the bike in the lead up to the French Riviera T100 and she said at the time: “It left me a bit battered. Not bad but not well enough to race on Saturday.”
As she says, her sister Nina Derron is anong the starters in Kona in what is looking like a race for the ages, with former champions Lucy Charles-Barclay, Laura Philipp and Chelsea Sodaro among the big favourites along with Kat Matthews and Knibb.
Fingers crossed Derron’s recovery goes smoothly and she’s back in race action soon.
The latest start list is here.
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