Lucy Charles-Barclay is renowned for her swimming prowess, and she proved it on Friday as she returned to the pool for a record-breaking performance.
Triathlon’s very own ‘mermaid’ was a swimmer by trade before expanding into three sports, and the 2023 IRONMAN World Champion regularly blows races wide open right from the opening gun.
Lucy has been recovering in recent weeks from the calf injury which sadly stopped her defending that title in Nice last month, but on Friday she was back in the pool showing off the sensational swimming skills that make her so difficult to beat in triathlon.
LCB SMASHES Masters record
The 31-year-old superstar took part in the Swim England Masters National Championships in Sheffield, and she started off in Heat 13 of the Mixed 1500m Freestyle (30-34). Taking on a field which included none other than her husband Reece.
To say LCB aced it would be quite the understatement, as she powered to a dominant victory in a time of 16:55:36 – a new British & European Masters record by just over seven seconds. Sensational stuff.
As well as smashing that record Lucy also posted the second fastest time overall – a terrific performance.
Not The Mermaid’s first single-discipline competition since turning to multisport
While Lucy Charles-Barclay’s days focusing solely on swimming might be behind her since she burst onto the triathlon scene, the Masters National Championships isn’t the first time she’s returned to the pool to test herself against single-discipline specialists since becoming a professional triathlete.
In 2021, LCB swam the 1500m in the British Swimming Olympic Trials. She hit the wall in 16:46.26, coming in second place just 17 one-hundredths of a second behind the winner. While it wasn’t fast enough for Charles-Barclay to make the Olympic team, it certainly showed that adding bike-run into the mix hadn’t slowed her down in the water.
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