India Lee, the PTO World #15, shocked a world class field at the first T100 Triathlon World Tour event in Miami, as she took a memorable victory in the Sunshine State.
Finishing ahead of IRONMAN World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay and former IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Holly Lawrence, Lee made a move with 12km left on the run and never looked back.
With a Team GB sweep of the podium, plus Lucy Byram also finishing in sixth, the results in Miami clearly demonstrated the current strength in depth amongst British women over the 100km distance.
Swim – ‘The Lucy Show’ as Charles-Barclay and Buckingham lead
As expected, three brilliant swimmers, Charles-Barclay, Britain’s Lucy Buckingham and Spaniard Sara Perez Sala, set the pace up front early on in the water. However, Perez Sala started to struggle before the end of the first lap, leaving just Charles-Barclay and Buckingham up front.
By the time the pair started the second lap, the gap back to the rest of the field was more than 30 seconds, with Lawrence leading the chase pack which also included the likes of Lee, Paula Findlay and Kat Matthews.
Into transition, that gap had grown to a minute, with both Buckingham and Charles-Barclay looking strong heading off on to the bike, despite Buckingham reportedly coming down with food poisoning the day before the race.
With some strong bike power amongst the chasers, it looked like the group wouldn’t remain together for long once out on the iconic Homestead Speedway. Multiple time world champion Daniela Ryf, another incredible cyclist, was +2:25 down out of the water.
Bike – Lee bridges the gap
On to the bike, Charles-Barclay and Buckingham slowly but surely started to lose some of their advantage to the rest of the field, with Lawrence and Lee driving the chase pack as a small group started making some inroads to the front.
Continuing to make gains throughout the first 40km of the 80km bike leg, the chase pack which included Matthews, Byram and Findlay rode incredibly hard in an attempt to bridge up to the front two, but couldn’t quite make up the gap.
After Buckingham dropped out at the 48km mark, having battled so bravely after barely taking on any food over the past 24 hours, Lee broke away from the rest of the chasers and soloed up to LCB with just over 15km to go.
By the time they entered T2, the duo had a good gap of close to three minutes over Byram, who was joined by Findlay, Matthews and Lawrence, with Ryf another 30 seconds back in seventh coming off the bike.
Run – Patience is a virtue as Lee takes the tape
Starting out strong, Charles-Barclay opened up a small gap over Lee out of transition, with the IRONMAN World Champion holding her compatriot to around a ten second deficit for the first 5km.
Making her move with 12km to go though, Lee decided to put her stamp on the race, as she ran up into the lead for the first time and started to ramp up the pace.
With the rest of the field battling it out for third, Lee cemented her status at the front with lap-by-lap and realizing the race was hers to lose, continued to pull away in the closing kilometres.
Eventually holding on to win by more than half a minute, Lee cut an emotional figure as she crossed the finish line, taking the biggest win of her career and demonstrating why she will be a force to be reckoned with throughout this series.
In second, LCB finished strong and looked good on her return from injury, with Lawrence beating Findlay and Ryf to third for her first podium since IRONMAN 70.3 Boulder last June.
Similarly to the men’s race, a number of athletes unfortunately did not finish in Miami, with Matthews and Emma Pallant-Browne two high profile withdrawals in an unforgiving race.
Miami T100 – Saturday March 9 2024
2km / 80km / 18km
PRO WOMEN
- 1. India Lee (GBR) – 3:27:12 [25:52/1:53:09/1:06:05]
- 2. Lucy Charles-Barclay (GBR) – 3:27:42 [24:52/1:54:11/1:06:43]
- 3. Holly Lawrence (GBR) – 3:30:36 [25:50/1:56:03/1:06:41]
- 4. Paula Findlay (CAN) – 3:31:39 [26:01/1:55:52/1:07:39]
- 5. Daniela Ryf (SUI) – 3:32:29 [27:17/1:55:05/1:08:10]
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