Originally published at: A Year in Triathlon: The Top Comebacks of 2025 - Slowtwitch News
Hayden Wilde produced a near-perfect season after suffering a brutal training accident. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
It’s never fun to see athletes sidelined by injuries and illnesses, but it is exciting to witness their comebacks when they’re well enough to return to racing. It’s especially exciting when those comebacks lead to big results and wins, which was the case for a few top athletes this season. There are of course many athletes who made comebacks in 2025, but here are the best of the best from the past year.
Wilde’s Quick Recovery
Hayden Wilde got his year off to a great start, winning WTCS Abu Dhabi in February and T100 Singapore in April. Just a month after his T100 triumph, Wilde’s season hit a sizeable speed bump after a bike crash on a training ride in Japan left him hospitalized.
Wilde was in Japan for an Asics running event where he ran a lifetime best of 27:39 for a road 10K. The very next day, he was out for a ride when he crashed into a truck. Wilde punctured a lung, broke multiple ribs and broke a scapula. A few days after the accident, he had shoulder surgery, and it looked like his 2025 campaign might have been in the books.
Wilde won T100 London after a months-long break from racing. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
Just three months later, however, Wilde was not only back to training, he was not only back to racing, but he was back to winning. He won T100 London in dominant fashion, and the victories didn’t stop coming after that.
He won all but one T100 event he entered for the rest of the season, with the lone loss coming in Dubai after he rode an extra lap on the bike course. He finished eighth that day, but he likely would have won if he had hit T2 at the appropriate time, as he was in the lead before he started the extra lap and later went on to have the fastest run split of the day.
Wilde’s near-perfect season led to him winning the T100 world title for 2025, and all after a slew of injuries that would have left most athletes out for the year (if not longer).
Charles-Barclay’s Redemption Tour
Lucy Charles-Barclay had a disappointing end to her 2024 season after injury prevented her from racing in the final few months of the year. Unable to defend her IRONMAN world title from 2023, she entered this season on a mission to make up for that lost time.
Charles-Barclay won the 70.3 worlds just weeks after a DNF in Kona. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
Charles-Barclay ended up winning five times across T100, 70.3 and IRONMAN races, including IRONMAN Lanzarote, T100 London and the 70.3 World Championship in Marbella, Spain. The latter win came just a month after a devastating race in Kona, where she was forced to pull out mid-run after the looking like she was about to win another IRONMAN world crown.
In a way, Charles-Barclay pulled off two comebacks in 2025 — first by returning to top form after a shortened 2024 season, then again after the worlds-winning turnaround between Kona and Marbella.
Arthur Horseau’s Cozumel Comeback
France’s Arthur Horseau burst onto the long-distance racing scene in 2023, first winning IRONMAN Lanzarote in May of that year and then finishing sixth at the IRONMAN World Championship on home soil in Nice.
In 2024, Horseau finished second at IRONMAN Austria, but after that the results stopped coming. He registered DNFs at the World Triathlon Long Distance Championships and in Kona, and back issues kept him sidelined for almost all of 2025.
Arthur Horseau wins IRONMAN Lanzarote. Photo: James Mitchell/ Club La Santa
It wasn’t until IRONMAN Cozumel in November when he finally made his return to racing, and it could not have gone better. He won the race in 7:48:18, mainly thanks to a race-best 4:06:22 bike split (the next-fastest rider was more than five minutes slower).
Horseau took his time before getting back to competition, but that seems to have been the right move, as he not only returned to his winning ways, but he also booked his spot in Kona before the 2026 season even got started.
Lucy Byram Battles Through Grief in Qatar
Great Britain’s Lucy Byram was having a solid year of racing on the T100 circuit before tragedy struck. She was training in France after a season-best fourth-place finish at T100 French Riviera when her partner, Commonwealth Games cyclist Sam O’Shea, was hit by a motorcycle while on a bike ride. O’Shea was airlifted to hospital, but he died several hours later.
Byram finished ninth in the T100 standings in 2025. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
This was a massive blow to Byram, just 26 years old, and although no one would have faulted her for taking more time off of racing, she got back to competition at the T100 finale in Qatar in December. Byram finished 11th in Qatar (recording the fastest ride of the day) and locked up a top-10 result in the 2025 series rankings.
“I’m so proud of the life and career that me and Sam have built together over the last [eight] years,” she wrote on Instagram after the race. “I hope to keep living this life with Sam always in my heart, and will try to make memories for the both of us.”
Sam Laidlow Overcomes Injury
Sam Laidlow made a name for himself after a second-place finish in Kona in 2022 and an IRONMAN World Championship win in Nice a year later. Going into 2024, he was one of the top men to beat on Hawaii’s Big Island, but he finished well back of the lead in 18th. After the race, he announced that he had a hamstring tear and had to cut his season short.
Laidlow wins Challenge Roth 2025. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon
This season didn’t start off any better than the end of last, and more health issues kept him from getting back to peak fitness. It wasn’t until July that Laidlow made his return, but it turned out to be worth the wait, as he won Challenge Roth in a blazing-fast time of 7:29:35. He then proceeded to win IRONMAN Leeds just three weeks later, and a month and a half after that he finished fifth in a stacked field at the IRONMAN World Championship.
Laidlow certainly wanted more out of the season and his final race of 2025, but considering how he started the year, this was a great comeback, and he has a lot to build on as he works toward 2026.