Kona 2025 IM World Championship Race Day Thread

[Ajax_Bay]

@Triathletetoth

She was sitting in. She wasn’t racing Knibb and LCB that would have been stupid they were #1 or bust she wasn’t .

I respect your take but I don’t think the IM Pro Series was an influence during the race. Certainly I expect ‘her team’ discussed the necessity to finish and we saw extra cooling measures (bear in mind her medical background and Matthews M’s arduous military experience).

Here’s @Ironmandad ‘s take.

@Ironmandad

Kat Matthews Forces People to Be at Their Best

Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Think about this – Kat Matthews has finished second at the IRONMAN World Championship three times. The first time was to Daniela Ryf, one of the greatest athletes our sport has ever seen, who took her full-distance IRONMAN world title in dramatic style in St. George. Ryf’s legacy as one of the sport’s all-time greats could only be confirmed if someone “kept her honest” out on the course, which Matthews did. She also finished ahead of 2019 IRONMAN World Champion Anne Haug.

Last year Matthews and Laura Philipp put on an incredible show for us all in Nice, with the two running side by side for the first lap of the run before the German took off.

This year Matthews pushed Philipp to the limit in Hamburg, which ended with the German running a 2:38 marathon and setting the fastest time ever at an IRONMAN race (8:03:13).

Here in Kona yesterday I would argue we saw another example of the Matthews effect. In this case it was probably more of a “Matthews/ Philipp” effect – Taylor Knibb and Lucy Charles-Barclay were out in front pushing to their limits because of the concerns of just how much time the two might gain on them in the run. Yes, I get that on race day Solveig Lovseth ended up being the woman who was closest to the pair off the bike and into the run, but before the race, when it came to planning a race stategy, I would think that the ever-consistent Matthews and what she’s capable of on the run would have engendered much more consideration than the unknown potential of the Norwegian in her first Kona experience.

He articulates it so much better than I could.

• Knibb and LCB were not to know Matthews was going to have a sh1t bike.
• They might hope for a 10 minute gap and her or Philipp to run a 2:47 and Loevseth to run a 2:52 (5 mins slower per the gap in Hamburg).
• Knibb clearly had a plan to run a 2:57, and she did, for 30km before she slowed as the conditions bit: never approached that speed before, let alone in hot/humid.
• When LCB found herself ex-T2 with a lead of 13 (over Matthews) and 4 minutes over Loevseth she should have recalibrated and aimed for a slow catch on Knibb and paced herself for a 2:56 (to beat Loevseth and well ahead of Matthews).
• LCB set off at sub-2:49 pace, ran up Palani as fast as Matthews (per Strava QOM) and the rest is history.