Lucy Charles-Barclay‘s bid for a repeat IRONMAN World Championship win in Kona was first put under threat after she was hit with an ‘unintentional littering’ penalty.
The Briton, the winner the last time the women’s race was held on the Big Island in Hawaii in 2023, had enjoyed a near-perfect race to that point.
She led out the swim in now-customary fashion, actually going 10 seconds quicker than two years previously.
60 seconds in the penalty tent
And she continued to put the power down on the bike, staying clear of the field early on – with Taylor Knibb emerging as her closest challenger.
And of the other three big five favourites, 2022 winner Chelsea Sodaro exited the race before the halfway point with what looked like stomach issues.
But last year’s one-two Laura Philipp and Kat Matthews were losing ground and now nearly 10 minutes back.
But then came the huge news that Lucy had been shown a yellow card for unintentional littering, with a 60 seconds penalty to be served, seemingly for a bottle dropping off her bike.
Paying the penalty?
She took that with around a quarter of the 180km bike leg to go – and it looked like she communicated that fact to Knibb, both athletes being coached by Dan Lorang.
Charles-Barclay appeared composed in the penalty tent – and herself and Knibb were still well clear of their rivals.
Knibb moved into the lead, with Solveig Løvseth more than six minutes back in third and double-figure digits to the rest.
But there was incredible drama to come later on the run as first Charles-Barclay and then Knibb exited the race as the heat got the better of them – read all about how it panned out here.
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