Great Britain’s Kat Matthews clinched a brilliant podium in front of a jubilant home crowd on Saturday, as the 33-year-old finished third at the London T100.
Coming home behind winner Ashleigh Gentle and second place finisher Imogen Simmonds, Matthews prevailed in a tight battle with German Laura Philipp over the 18km run leg.
The podium, her fourth in as many races so far this season, moved her up into sixth in the T100 Tour standings as she continues to balance her ambitions over the 100km distance with the IRONMAN Pro Series.
Taking on the challenge
After announcing her intention to compete for both the T100 Tour and IRONMAN Pro Series titles at the start of the season, Matthews saw her plans slightly derailed when she tore her calf at the Miami T100.
However, after bouncing back from that setback, the PTO World #5 has been on a roll, with wins at IRONMAN Texas and IRONMAN Vitoria-Gasteiz sandwiching a second place finish at the San Francisco T100 last month.
Despite her recent success, Matthews is not taking anything for granted, and shared after the race in London that she is fully committed to continuing to do her best in both endeavours moving forward.
“I’m fully committed to both of them [T100 Tour and IRONMAN Pro Series], there’s no part of me that thinks I can get away with not committing to them.”
Proving people wrong
After the result in London, Matthews will hope she starts to get more credit for her middle distance prowess, something that she said has been pushing her onwards for the past four years.
“I’m not sure if the performances themselves have given me more energy but since 2020, I’ve had a chip on my shoulder about being an IRONMAN athlete and not being able to perform over the middle distance.
“These races are just giving me the energy to keep cementing my ability to get faster and it really helps across the board.”
When it comes to race distances, Matthews made an interesting point about her training, which she said that was more similar to that of an Olympic distance athlete like Sophie Coldwell than reigning IRONMAN World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay.
“I don’t think you have to be specific in your training or racing, my training is probably more like Sophie Coldwell than Lucy Charles.”
With the next T100 Tour event not until September 28-29, triathlon fans can next expect to see Matthews at the IRONMAN 70.3 European Championship in Tallinn next month, or failing that, at the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice in September.
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