Lucy Charles-Barclay says she still does not know what went wrong in Kona
Nine days after a second straight Ironman World Championship ended at the roadside, the 2023 champion wrote that she was “still hurting” and would spend the winter asking hard questions about what to change.
Lucy Charles-Barclay has said she still does not know why her Ironman World Championship ended early for the second year running. In a message on Instagram on 19 October, nine days after the race in Kona, the British triathlete wrote: “Honestly, I’m still hurting.”
“I still don’t know what happened. I believed in the work. I believed in myself. I believed in my team. Maybe that’s the hardest part to accept,” she wrote, in a post reproduced in full by 220 Triathlon. “We prepared for so many scenarios. Not this one.”
It was her first public comment on the race. Charles-Barclay, the 2023 world champion, did not finish on 10 October. As in 2025, she stopped on the side of the road during the marathon, and she was helped, 220 Triathlon reported, by her husband and coach, Reece Barclay.
The same place, a year apart
Charles-Barclay had built her season around Kona. She withdrew from the 70.3 World Championship in Nice, held on 12 September, less than two weeks before the race, saying that tapering, racing flat out and then recovering would disrupt her final weeks of preparation, DAZN reported. “Once the gun goes, there’s no 90% setting,” she said at the time. The decision meant she did not defend the 70.3 title she had won in Marbella in 2025.
In Kona she started the run in second place, in a race won by Taylor Knibb of the United States. Triathlete reported that she stopped running “mere yards” from where her race had ended the year before. The television broadcast showed her vomiting and mentioned possible seasickness from the swim, but Triathlete said that explanation was unconfirmed. Her post does not give a cause.
“No quick way to make it right”
In 2025 she followed her Kona disappointment by winning the 70.3 world title in Marbella. This time the season offers no such chance, she wrote. “Last year, Marbella gave us a shot at redemption. This year, there’s no quick way to make it right. Kona will sit with me through the winter, and I’m slowly starting to accept that.”
She said she would use that time. “I’ll look honestly at everything, ask the hard questions and change what needs changing. I’ll remember exactly how this feels long after it stops hurting. I think I need to.”
She also wrote about the difficulty of saying so in public. “It isn’t easy to admit this here. I’ve felt embarrassed. I’ve worried about being judged when I’m already down. But I’d rather be honest than pretend I’m fine.”
She has not said what she will race in 2027. The 2027 Ironman World Championship is in Kona on 9 October 2027.
