Solveig Løvseth of Norway claims Ironman World Championship after Taylor Knibb, Lucy Charles-Barclay resign from race
Final Update
The 2025 Women’s Ironman World Championship seemed like a two-person race for much of the day — until all of a sudden, it wasn’t.
Lucy Charles-Barclay of Great Britain, who led for much of the race including at different points during the swim, bike and run courses, withdrew from competition during the second half of the marathon.
It appeared as though Charles-Barclay, the 2023 champion, may have zapped herself of the necessary energy to finish the triathlon in an effort to keep pace with American Taylor Knibb. Knibb was seeking her first World Championship and was in position to capture it until approximately two miles remained on the run course.
First Knibb slowed down, then she began to wobble, and finally she sat on the scorching hot pavement and watched as Solveig Løvseth of Norway jogged past her toward a title in what was her first ever trip to Kailua-Kona.
“It was not the way I wanted to pass any of them,” Løvseth said of Charles-Barclay and Knibb. “I hope they are okay.”
Løvseth finished the race in a time of 8:28:27. That was just 35 seconds faster than Kat Matthews of the United Kingdom, who earned runner-up honors at the Ironman World Championships for the second time in her career.
“I worked really hard. I’m pretty proud of my finish,” Matthews said after the race. “And I’m really happy for Solveig.”
Matthews posted a course record in the marathon leg of the competition, registering a time of 2:47:23 over the 26.2-mile run.
Laura Philipp of Germany, the reigning champion who captured her title in Nice, France in 2024, finished the day in third place and claimed the last spot on the podium.
“It was super tough,” Philipp said, acknowledging that she knew near the beginning of the run course that she probably wasn’t going to earn a repeat championship. “I could feel pretty fast this was not my day to fly.”
Philipp finished the day in a time of 8:37:28.
Hannah Berry of New Zealand finished one spot off the podium in fourth in a time of 8:46:25, while Lisa Perterer of Austria came in fifth with a time of 8:48:08.
Update #4
Lucy Charles-Barclay, the winner of the Women’s Ironman World Championship in 2023, has dropped out of the competition a little more than halfway into the run course in a resignation that took the entire sport by surprise.
Charles-Barclay jumped out to a 90-second lead after the 2.4-mile swim course and led for much of the 112-mile bike course up and down the Kohala Coast. However, the former champ out of Great Britain ran into some bad luck while on two wheels, as a water bottle fell off of her bike in a portion of the race where discarding trash is not permitted.
The result was a one-minute penalty, during which Taylor Knibb of the United States overtook Charles-Barclay. The British triathlete may have expended too much energy over the remainder of the bike course and the beginning of the marathon to pull herself back into the lead, potentially failing to regulate her body temperature and/or lacking the nutrition (caloric intake) to maintain an even pace.
Charles-Barclay began to walk through multiple aid stations on the run course, consuming water and using ice in her hands and mouth — presumably to try and bring down her core temperature. She was also noticeably unstable physically while walking through those aid stations.
Knibb eventually caught back up and then built a lead of more than two minutes over Charles-Barclay during the second half of the marathon. Charles-Barclay’s husband was later seen on the course telling his wife that, for her own safety, she needed to pull out of the competition.
Husband and wife embraced emotionally amid the brutally hot lava fields of North Kona, as Charles-Barclay ended her day in way that neither she, nor any of her fans or competitors, would have predicted when the triathlon began.
Knibb now has a comfortable lead and is the clear favorite to win her first Ironman World Championship as the marathon continues.
Update #3
The lead in the 2025 Women’s Ironman World Championship changed hands on the way back to Kailua-Kona from Kawaihae Harbor.
Lucy Charles-Barclay of Great Britain entered the 112-mile bike course with a 90-second lead following a dominating performance on the 2.4-mile swim course. American Taylor Knibb, who finished the swim portion of the race in third place, quickly moved into second position on the bike and worked to gain on Charles-Barclay across the several-hour pedal up and down the Kohala Coast.
Knibb caught a break in that regard, as Charles-Barclay incurred a yellow-card penalty for unintentional littering. A water bottle popped off of her bike in an area of the course where discarding trash is not permitted. As a result, Charles-Barclay had to stop in a penalty tent alongside Queen Ka‘ahumanu Highway for a full minute, as Knibb furiously pressed her advantage.
Knibb hit the transition from bike to run first after clocking a time of 4:31:00 on the bike course, while Charles-Barclay began the run second. Charles-Barclay, the winner of the 2023 Women’s Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, has traditionally preferred to compete from the front. As such, it wouldn’t be a surprise if she pushes to gain a lead over Knibb as soon as possible and then attempts to hold it through the finish line on Ali‘i Drive.
Charles-Barclay trailed Knibb by only one minute and eight seconds just before 12:15 p.m. HST. The top three competitors as of that time were as follows:
- Taylor Knibb (USA)
- Lucy Charles-Barclay (Great Britain)
- Solveig Løvseth (Norway)
Update #2
The leaders of the Women’s Ironman World Championship have finished the swim course and transitioned to the bike portion of the globe’s premier triathlon in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
As has been the norm for several years, Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay built a strong lead through the first leg of the race. She finished the swim course with a time of 49:29, which afforded her a 1:30-lead over American Haley Chura.
Emerging third from the ocean, just behind Chura, was fellow American Taylor Knibb, who pulled into second place behind Charles-Barclay shortly into the 112-mile (180-kilometer) bike course.
Great Britain’s Holly Lawrence picked up 13 seconds on Charles-Barclay during the transition period between the swim and bike courses, which includes shedding swim skin, running through the showers, changing into bike clothes and grabbing nutrition supplements that the athletes keep on their persons for the long ride ahead.
Knibb had picked up 25 seconds on leader Charles-Barclay less than 15 minutes into the bike course, which will likely take the fastest competitors between four and a half hours and five hours to complete, depending on conditions. Knibb was still over one minute behind Charles-Barclay overall at that point in the competition.
Wind conditions weren’t as onerous as in years past, at least not at the very beginning of the race, with a light wind out of the west/southwest, which will serve as something between a crosswind and a tail wind heading out of Kailua-Kona on Kuakini Highway.
As of approximately 7:40 a.m. HST, the order of the leaderboard was as follows:
- Lucy Charles-Barclay
- Taylor Knibb
- Holly Lawrence
- Marta Sanchez
- Julie Iemmelo
Update #1
Professional participants in the women’s-only Ironman World Championship waded into the crystal blue waters of the Pacific ocean surrounding Kailua Pier in downtown Kailua-Kona a little before 6:30 a.m. HST on the morning of Saturday, October 11.
Some of the top female athletes in the world made their way to the start of the 2.4-mile (3.8-kilometer) swim course, which marks the beginning of a grueling day of swimming, biking and running, which will end just feet away from where it begins this morning on Ali’i Drive.
Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay — who captured the crown during the 2023 Ironman World Championship, the last time it was held in Hawaii, and is considered the top swimmer in the competition — discussed the unique and challenging swim course.
“The Kona swim course is like no other course on the planet really, it’s like literally swimming in an aquarium,” Charles-Barclay said.
She added that the currents and “the chop” of the ocean can cause specific challenges, though the swell on Saturday morning wasn’t overly intimidating when the race began. However, it increased as the women made their way further from shore and began to fight it.
Charles-Barclay pulled out to an early lead, with American Taylor Nibb on her heels. Also in the group is reigning champion Laura Phillipp.
A rainy pre-dawn gave way to overcast skies, as fans packed downtown Kailua-Kona to cheer on their countrywomen and favorite athletes. Charles-Barclay said the cheers will be louder when the women finish the swim course and transition to the bike than at any other time in the race until the very end of the marathon, as the finish line begins to come into view.
Original Post
As the sun rises over the Big Island this morning, more than 1,600 registered female athletes will flock to the Kailua-Kona pier for the start of the last women’s-only 2025 Ironman World Championship.
Reigning Ironman World Champion Laura Philipp of Germany will lead the professional field that includes two other Ironman World Champions: Great Britain’s Lucy Charles-Barclay and American Chelsea Sodaro.
Charles-Barclay captured the top podium spot in 2023, the last time the women’s World Championship was held in Kona.
The grueling 140.6-mile course starts at Kailua Bay with the 2.4-mile swim. Athletes will then transition to the 112-mile cycling course that spans up to Hawī and back to downtown Kona. The final leg of the race is a 26.2-mile run that takes athletes through town and into the lava fields at the Hawai‘i Ocean Science and Technology Park (just south of Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport) and back to the finish line along Ali’i Drive.
The top female professional athletes will battle it out on the world’s most iconic stage of triathlon for a piece of the $375,000 women’s professional prize purse and the crown of Ironman World Champion. The winner takes home $125,000.
This year is the last that the men and women will compete in separate races. Starting in 2026, the Ironman World Championship will once again have women and men competing on the same day, and in the same place — its home in Kona since 1981.
For the past three Ironman World Championships, the women and men competed in the triathlon at separate locations, alternating between Kona and Nice, France. The men’s 2025 World Championship was held in Nice on Sept. 14, with Casper Stornes of Norway winning the race in which more than 2,500 people competed.
The historic race was split and held in two locations after the Kona community blowback from the 2022 event, when a record 5,200 athletes qualified for the World Championship due to deferrals caused by the COVID pandemic and canceled or relocated races.
Live race day coverage will be broadcast across multiple platforms for global viewers including proseries.ironman.com, DAZN, YouTube, Outside TV exclusively for the U.S. and Canada, L’Équipe in France, HR TV and ARD TV Live in Germany, ESPN (within Disney+) for viewers in the Caribbean and Latin America, iQIYI in China, SuperSport in South Africa, and RTVE Play in Spain.
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