Lucy Charles-Barclay reveals race week drama and why she made the heartbreaking decision to pull out of the IRONMAN World Championship

The pain was evident as Lucy Charles-Barclay spoke about the agonising decision to pull out of the IRONMAN World Championship in Nice.

The British superstar had been scheduled to defend the title she won so brilliantly in Kona last year, before a calf injury at the 11th hour forced her to give up her dreams just one day out from go time on the Cote d’Azur.

Instead Lucy was forced to watch German star Laura Philipp race to glory on the French Riviera, while the 31-year-old Brit was left to wonder about what might have been.

LCB arrives in Nice, in fantastic shape

LCB spoke in depth about the race week drama, and that heartbreaking decision, in her latest YouTube video (you can watch the full version at the foot of this article).

In it she revealed her decision to pull out was all the more heartbreaking after she had arrived in Nice in fantastic shape on the back of a terrific five-week camp in Lanzarote.

“Everything was going really really well. I had an amazing training camp leading into this race, was in amazing shape and arrived in Nice with no hiccups, no issues,” she said.

Before that devastating injury blow, Lucy had some other race week issues to deal with. But this was something she believes she could have got through.

Food poisoning for Lucy

“And then unfortunately on Wednesday of race week I got food poisoning, so was quite sick for a couple of days – would have definitely been dehydrated and felt a bit of a lack of energy from that. But that wasn’t an issue, that was fine, I knew could race with that – have enough time to get the fuel back in, the electrolytes back in and be ready.”

With Lucy on the mend from that bout of food poisoning, everything once again seemed set fair for that title defence. But sadly, it was not to be.

Friday of race week, and disaster strikes

“On the Friday of race week I did a shakeout run in the morning. And at about 2k into that run I felt something in my calf that felt a bit like cramp but it didn’t feel good. It tightened up and I was a bit concerned about it. This isn’t in the calf that I injured in Kona – it’s in the other leg. Again, came out of nowhere, I was like ‘doesn’t feel good, bit worried about it’.”

An ultrasound scan revealed that Charles-Barclay had a type 1C strain in the muscle, and now she faced the agonising decision of what to do next. The local medical advice was that she was heading into the unknown – things could turn out fine, or they might not. Ultimately, after the fallout from that injury sustained in Kona last year, it was a risk she was not willing to take.

“I decided it wasn’t worth the risk, had a lot of phone calls with my team, my manager, my doctors at home and my physios at home. And we made the decision that it just wasn’t worth the risk after the injury I sustained last year. It has been months and months of work and rehab to get that leg strong – and I’ll still probably have to continue doing that to keep that leg strong, so I wasn’t just willing to take the risk this time.”

The right call

As she reflected after watching the big race, Lucy was satisfied she had made the right decision.

“It was an extremely difficult decision, I do believe it was the right one. Definitely watching the race was tough – I wondered if I’d made the right decision – but I definitely stand by the decision I made, as tough as yesterday was.”