Kona is always special, but this year maybe just a little bit more for Lucy Charles-Barclay and her rivals.
For it’s the first time the women will completely have the IRONMAN World Championship stage to themselves, with the men’s race having already taken place in Nice on the French Riviera last month.
Triathlon has always prided itself on its gender equality but, as Charles-Barclay told TRI247, there’s a real opportunity to underline that and showcase the very best of the sport this week.
LCB on inspiring others
Bidding for a first win after four successive second places in Hawaii, she said: “We’ve got an amazing field of women. It’s the first time that it’s women-only in Kona, so I feel like all of us want to put on a really great show and I’m no different to anyone else.
“And it feels like the hype is just as big as having a double World Championship here with the men. So that’s really great to see that we’re getting all the attention.
“We’ve got a stacked start list, no-one is missing, so we should be getting that level of attention and the media is definitely hyping it up as well.”
Looking at the bigger picture she added: “I think it’s a great time to be a female athlete in this sport as well. And hopefully we’re inspiring more and more women to get into triathlon, maybe try the full distance as well.”
Standard rising all the time
The good news this year is that the best racing the best has become a regular occurrence, rather than just confined to end-of-season World Championships.
Charles-Barclay agreed, saying: “It’s an amazing time to be a triathlete, for sure. We’ve got so many different racing opportunities with the PTO bringing in their circuit of races, and you can just see the standard is rising because it’s bringing the best athletes together more and more often.
“We used to maybe only race once or twice a year against a kind of a World Championship start list, whereas we’re now able to do it multiple times a year and I’d say the standard of particularly women’s racing is just going from strength to strength.”
The Brit has never ducked a challenge and she reckons it brings the best out of her, explaining: “I’ve always wanted to go and race the toughest races, the biggest competition, to see how I stack up.
I think that is the way that you can improve the most as an athlete.
“If you haven’t had a great race, you know exactly what you need to go and work on for the next time. So, yeah, I think it just brings the best out of the athletes.”
But from next season onwards, with the PTO having promised significantly more than their current three races, the biggest names will have a potential embarrassment of riches to choose from.
“It means that we have to kind of plan our calendars a lot earlier in the season and make sure you’re managing your body well,” admitted Lucy.
“I would have definitely liked to race more this year than I have and definitely last year [she had an injury to contend with in both instances]. So I’m hoping that next year that my calendar will be a bit busier. But even having said that, I will still have to pick how many races I can realistically do throughout the year.”
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