IRONMAN field producer Sam Twine follows the IRONMAN Pro Series and professional racing all year long. Here’s his take on what it will take to win Oct. 11 in Kona. This preview first appeared on the IRONMAN website.
We’re counting down the few days left until the IRONMAN World Championship, with the world’s best athletes now on the Big Island. The field is absolutely stacked, filled with world champions and Olympians, making this one of the most competitive lineups in recent memory.
This Saturday’s race is sure to be a star-studded showdown.
Nine of the top 10 finishers from Nice, France, last year are returning, including the podium trio: Laura Philipp, Kat Matthews and Chelsea Sodaro.
Joining them is 2023 IRONMAN World Champion — and Kona’s most recent female winner — Lucy Charles-Barclay along with three-time IRONMAN 70.3 World Champion Taylor Knibb.
Olympians Julie Derron, Solveig Løvseth and Lisa Perterer headline the 19 athletes making their IRONMAN World Championship debut.
Not only is this the biggest race of the year, it is also pivotal in the IRONMAN Pro Series, offering a massive 6,000 points to the winner.
All top 19 ranked athletes are racing.
With Kat Matthews having dropped only 120 points throughout her four races this season, she could seal another IRONMAN Pro Series title with a strong result. Meanwhile, Løvseth, Perterer, Marta Sanchez and Jackie Hering are all battling for podium positions.
Charles-Barclay has a perfect record of leading out the swim at world championship races and is expected to break away solo again.
However, Knibb has managed to swim with the Brit in both of their head-to-head races this year, so she could be the one to hang on.
Expect Rebecca Clarke, Haley Chura and Lotte Wilms to drive the chase pack, which has historically lost 90 seconds to 2 minutes.
This year, the group could be larger, with India Lee, Holly Lawrence, Marta Sanchez, Julie Iemmolo and Derron all racing on the Big Island for the first time.
Also in the mix is Steph Clutterbuck, who raced here as an age grouper and Chelsea Sodaro who is coming off a career-best swim in Kalmar, Sweden, and is looking to make up for a disappointing swim in 2023.
The second chase pack should feature Matthews, Løvseth, Perterer and Marjolaine Pierré, who typically lose 4 to 5 minutes to Lucy.
Philipp might be in the third pack, about 7 minutes down, but she’ll be aiming to replicate her Hamburg, Germany, performance and come out of the water with Matthews.
With such depth in the field, bike packs will play a bigger role than usual this year in Kona.
That could make it harder for Charles-Barclay to stay out front unless Knibb can bridge up early and the pair work together.
Knibb now has more full-distance experience than she did in 2023 and is fresh off her first wind tunnel session, so expect her to be flying.
Matthews, Løvseth and Perterer might work together.
Matthews lost 2 minutes to Philipp in the first 40 kilometres in 2023, so they’ll need to keep the pace high to hold off the German.
Given Matthews’ current form, she might try to break away early from the group.
If Philipp misses the swim pack, she’ll be chasing all day and hoping to find allies on the return from Hāwī.
Philipp and Matthews are the in-form runners and will be looking to chase down Charles-Barclay and Knibb.
But Charles-Barclay appears to be in the best run shape of her life, having claimed wins in London and Oropesa, Spain. She might be about to lay down her best-ever marathon.
Then there’s Løvseth, who has run 2:46 in both her IRONMAN races, Derron who cruised to a 2:51 in Vitoria, Spain, earlier this year, and Chelsea Sodaro, who owns two of the fastest-ever run splits on the Big Island.
With unpredictable conditions and a stacked field, anything can happen. It’s all set to go down this Saturday, and I cannot wait to see how it unfolds.
The women’s IRONMAN World Championship race is Oct. 11 — this weekend — in Kona. Visit the IRONMAN website for all the details.
Also keep an eye on Big Island Now throughout the week for more IRONMAN-related news and features, including race coverage this weekend.
