By her own incredibly high standards, 2025 was an up-and-down year for American phenom Taylor Knibb.

The only time she was off the podium was at the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, when she led until 3km to go on the run before the brutally hot and humid conditions brought her to a standstill.

She bounced back brilliantly to come second in the 70.3 World Championships, an event she had won in each of the previous three seasons.

And in a typically honest interview with Jack Kelly in the latest edition of his ‘The Triathlon Hour’ podcast she goes into fascinating detail on everything from her T100 contract to that Kona collapse, eventually giving herself a score of 77% for the season as a whole!

Learning what works best

And near the end of the interview she reveals her plans for 2026, which she prefaces by saying: “I think when people learn what I am hoping to do this year, I will get a lot of criticism.

“But I think [it’s about] learning what works best for you.”

Earlier she had said that one big lesson learned from 2024 was the impact of barely having an off-season, so it was no surprise to see her swerve the T100 Grand Final in Qatar in December last year – even though she was in the mix for the overall title.

And one big takeout from 2025: “Focusing the year on Kona didn’t get the best out of me. I hope to be in Kona again, but I’m going to try something different.”

So as to how 2026 is currently looking, she explained: “I need to qualify for the 70.3 Worlds because I didn’t validate last year so I not only lost my five-year exemption from 2024, but I lost it from all of my years. Which I was willing to do based on the season I had, I didn’t have time to validate.

“So I need to qualify for the 70.3 Worlds and I want to qualify for Kona and then I would like to start racing some short course races again to give myself the potential to race in LA [at the 2028 Olympics]” When Kelly suggested one or two WTCS races, Knibb shot back: “Maybe like four to six.”

That’s great news for short course fans and she has the choice of no fewer than 10, including the Grand Final in Pontevedra.

Early-season mix of sports

But Knibb of course also qualified for the 2024 Olympics in Paris in two different sports – taking part in the road cycling time trial as well as triathlon, where she anchored the USA to silver in the Mixed Team Relay.

And it’s clear that she intends to continue that dual focus. When asked about cycling, she replied: “Yes, I want to start time trialling again at the very minimum.

“I’m probably going to have to go to the Nationals [in mid-June]. The ideal world would be I’d go to the Pan-American Championship on March 17th in Colombia because the winner of that race automatically qualifies for the Worlds and increases the United States’ quota from two to three athletes.

“With the Colombia race up in the air, I signed up for both 70.3 Dallas (March 15th] and 70.3 Oceanside [March 28th]. I need to make the decision, but we’ll see how that goes.”

The interview is well worth a listen through in full – you can find it here and on other podcast platforms.